Branch Davidian Notes
(Received by E-Mail)

Subject:        	Branch Davidian factions
Date sent:      	Mon, 23 Nov 1998 16:56:35 -0500

I visited your site a couple of years ago, and just revisited it. I'm glad
to see you're keeping it up to date. However, you seem to be confused by
all the different factions of Branch Davidians. You don't seem to have
fully realized that ANTI-Koresh Branch Davidians put up almost all the
signs and markers you saw, or that the Koresh survivors are themselves
split. So I thought I would try to clear things up for you.

There are three factions of pro-Koresh Branch Davidians:
 
Most of the survivors have rallied around Clive Doyle as their pastor and
unofficial leader. However, while they respect him as a minister, he makes
no claim to being a prophet. Also, the survivors differ in how closely
they are tied to him. Some still live in the Waco area and regularly study
with him. But David Thibodeau, for example, has moved to California and
has married, contradicting the New Light celibacy doctrine the others
follow.
 
Their "official" website is the 3W.flash.net site, and its mirror/portal,
start.at/mt.carmel. However, it is actually run by a supporter, and they
don't seem to be too active with it- rather, they seem to let her do her
thing, and "bless" her efforts. It certainly doesn't focus on theology-
there is more of that at the Research Center. The Center includes the
writings of Livingstone Fagan, who they regard as one of their foremost
surviving theologians.
 
A dissident faction is Hidden Manna, which follows one of the Davidian
prisoners, Renos Avraam. He teaches that he is the "Chosen Vessel of the
Remaining Bride," who is to offer prophetic guidance before David's
Return. He has the support of three other prisoners, in Beaumont, Texas, a
group of survivors in Canada, plus some new converts. Relations between
these two factions are poor, running from open hostility to saccharine,
backstabbing hostility.
 
Their original site was the now-defunct Compuserve site. They are now at
the sevenseals.com site and its mirror, branchdavidian.com. They have also
grabbed the davidkoresh.com URL, but that is not a full mirror- it is more
a portal. They are also the ones who put up the GeoCities page. And they
have posted more messages to the other group's chatroom than they have!!!
If they seem more active than the others, they are. The others have a sort
of "let the mountain come to Mohammed" attitude, while Hidden Manna is
evangelistic. This has helped them run riot on the Web, becoming the
public face of the survivors (just as Lenin turned his minority faction
into the "Bolsheviks").
 
A small faction is that of Ron Cole. He was a student who rushed to Waco
right after the fire, befriended many survivors, and wrote a totally
pro-Davidian book, Sinister Twilight. He became a Branch Davidian, but
declared that David Koresh had failed to complete his mission as the
Seventh Angel, and that task now fell to him. His relations with the
survivors deteriorated quickly! I am not sure how much support he got.
Wally Kennet, who had studied with David but had left the group prior to
the siege, has accompanied Cole, though I am not absolutely certain he is
a believer. Cole later founded the First Colorado Light Infantry militia,
which passed out leaflets at the McVeigh trial. Then, during the trial,
he, Kennet, and another was arrested on firearms charges. I have heard
that Kennet at least has now gotten out.

There are some other people I will mention. Jesse Amen was one of the two
men who snuck into the compound during the siege, and appears to have
absorbed some belief in David Koresh as a prophet into his idiosyncratic
beliefs before wandering off. Andrew Hood called himself a prophet and
wanted to set up a church on the property. A Washington Post article
implied he considered himself a Branch Davidian prophet, but I don't think
that was the case. His efforts were unsuccessful, and he vanished. And
there may be some others who have "converted" with their own personal
spin. I asked one of the new converts about another proselyte I had seen
on a documentary, Phillip Pope, and she said he had been expelled as a
"subversive."

Next, I'll describe the anti-Koresh factions, but I'll let you digest this
first...

Subject:        	Branch Davidian factions II
Date sent:      	Mon, 23 Nov 1998 19:21:01 -0500

Now, the anti-K's!

The woman you met, Amo Paul Bishop Roden, is the ex-wife of George Roden,
David's rival. However, she believes that she is now the legitimate
prophet of the Branch, not him. This is a one-woman faction; she has no
followers.
 
George Roden continues to hold himself out as the rightful leader, but he
no longer has any followers.
 
Charles Pace is a Branch Davidian from Canada. After Lois Roden announced
her teaching that the Holy Spirit is feminine, he went her one better,
adding the Holy Daughter to the Trinity. This led to his expulsion,
according to Pace's foes, but as her control weakened he came south in
1984 to press his claims. When George Roden seized Mt. Carmel, he moved
his faction to Gadsden, Alabama. Now, he has moved back on to Mt. Carmel.
Unlike the Rodens, he has an actual congregation behind him. He also has a
website, at www.easy.com/thebranch/.

Lois Roden's will named Teresa Moore and another woman as her successors.
Moore's group is headquartered in Pennsylvania.

Doug Mitchell is another apparent one-man faction I only learned of a
couple of weeks ago myself, from some Waco Tribune-Herald articles at
their AccessWaco site. Those articles are my sole source of information.
It seems that he joined under Ben Roden, but regards all the current crop
of leaders as false prophets. He apparently sees himself not as a leader,
but as the last follower of "true" Branch Davidianism.

Of course, the Branch Davidians are just one of a number of Davidian
groups, who have their own share of factions and micro-factions. I will
refrain from going into those.

Next,  these factions in their struggle for Mt. Carmel!

Subject:        	Notes on "David K Wright"
Date sent:      	Sun, 6 Dec 1998 04:48:56 -0500

I know I told you that I would be telling you about the battle 
for Mt. Carmel between the survivors and the anti-Koresh 
Branches, but first this discursion. I believe that the e-mail 
you got from "David K Wright" came from a Hidden Manna member- HM 
has a practice of using e-mail pseudonyms. (It is possible that K 
stands for Koresh, and "Wright" could be a pun on right.) A 
couple of reasons for my conclusion. First, Manna used Juno for 
its e-mail, at least at the time. Then, the moniker, 
"guardian777," doesn't sound like the sort of name the typical 
user would pick, and Hidden Manna writes how "777" signifies a 
heavenly counterpoint to "666"- remember that their Compuserve 
site was "777HiddenManna777." Also, the portentous title, "The 
Truth of the matter...," sounds like the sort of title HM would 
give. The way the author mentions Clive Doyle without 
explanation, not considering that you might not know who he is, 
indicates someone familiar enough with the name that assuming 
such familiarity in others is natural. And of course, the 
contents of the message obviously show that the author strongly 
identifies with the survivors.   As supporting evidence, I have 
attached a GIF of the front of a Hidden Manna flyer.
Note the many uses of the word "Truth," the phrase, "conclusion
of the matter" [below center], and the e-mail address "@juno.com."
A couple of possible flies in the ointment: one Hidden Manna
survivor I met seemed friendlier with 
[message was cut off here]

Subject:        	Wrap-Up
Date sent:      	Wed, 23 Dec 1998 05:36:20 -0500

That last message got sent before it was finished! I was just 
going to say that one of the things that gives me pause about 
"Wright's" message being from Hidden Manna is that one of the 
Manna survivors I met seemed friendlier towards Amo than other 
survivors. However, this may be a personal attitude not shared by 
other Mannas, or a curteous facade; and Charlie Pace seems to be 
disliked even more strongly than Amo.

The other thing is the seeming approval of Clive Doyle's efforts 
to throw the anti-Ks out, when Clive is the leader of the other 
faction. However, the letter really does not express any opinion 
about him personally; it simply applauds the effort to get rid of 
the "squatters."

Also, here is the GIF I said I was going to attach!

I would be willing to send you an excerpt from a letter I wrote 
one of my old college professors, describing more fully Hidden 
Manna and its schism with the other Branch Davidians, but I 
thought this level of detail might exceed your level of interest. 
Therefore, I won't send it unless you request it.

I suppose I should mention that I have put up a website of my own now:
http://members.xoom.com/tienkuo/. It really doesn't
have enough content to be worth checking out right now, but I hope to
rectify that in the next couple of days.

As for that account of the fight for Mt. Carmel I've been promising:
that's been on the back-burner, to be honest. I'll probably write on it
for my webpage. But here's a less detailed account than I was planning,
dealing with the points on your webpage:

Who set the fires is still unknown. You've seen the unlikely accusation
that the "squatters" themselves set it. On the other hand, Amo Roden
points the finger at Robert Arnold, a man who has joined Clive's group and
goes now as just "Andrew," acting on Clive's orders. She describes him as
an ex-convict hired by Clive to be his goon. My own contact with him
convinces me that he is a true believer, not a mercenary. While I think he
would be willing to carry out such orders, I don't see the mild-mannered
Clive as the sort to give them. My guess would be that some local yahoo
did it.

To rebuild from the fires (and to fund some of Tom's projects), Amo and
Tom Drake decided to "ask" visitors for $1 admission. However, they had a
dispute: Tom wanted to collect on Saturdays, Amo felt this would break the
Sabbath. Tom got his old friend George Roden to agree to let him manage
the property as he saw fit; Amo was disputing the survivor's legal claim
on the grounds that George was the legitimate owner. Amo retired to her
parents' home in Florida in protest, returning to Waco only for
court-related business. This is likely the "vacation" Tom Drake told you
about.

At the time of your last visit, the "squatters" were still in control and
most of the signs you saw were theirs. The survivors did plant the grove
of crepe myrtles, and a militia donated the memorial headstone. The
markers to the "Branch" and the victims of Oklahoma City across from the
grove, as well as the writings on the display there, were from Charles
Pace. Pace himself lives in a building further up the property from the
ruins; this is probably the building you thought was being used as a
church by the survivors. The rest, such as the reconstructed open-air
museum and the signs, was Amo's.

(I don't remember specifically what problem Amo had with Carol Moore's
book, but I do know that Amo was a big fan of Linda Thompson's "The Big
Lie," and shared her tendency to see "feds" everywhere, and to see those
who had theories different from her own shifting theories as deliberate
agents of disinformation. By the way, Carol returns the favor, cheering
the survivors on in their effort to clear out the "phony" Davidians. Those
following Waco have been split on Amo, some taking the side of the
survivors, and others admiring her sincerity and tenacity, seeing in her
quixotic fight a microcosm of the battle between David's Branch Davidians
and the federal government.)

Also, the survivors do dislike the term "compound," and that word would
not have been seen if they had been in control. And that flooded "concrete
foundation" that "looked like" a swimming pool, was a swimming pool that
was being constructed at the time of the raid!

The situation has changed drastically since your last visit! Early this
year, Tom Drake left the property, and Clive's group took advantage of
that to finally establish a foothold on the property. They tore down Amo's
signs and museum, building their own one-room museum on the former site of
her pavilion in time for the anniversary. By the time Amo returned, they
were entrenched. When I was down there for the memorial service, they were
even running around in the camper-trailer! I found Amo after the service
up where the path crooks to the left- she was living in a pup tent and her
"museum" had been reduced to a few placards hanging from the branches of a
sprig! (Charlie Pace still had his building.) Apparently, Amo's condition
has improved, as recent articles again describe her as living in a camper
on the property.

A lot has been happening lately relating to the property. Early this
month, George Roden passed away. On the 10th, after many postponements,
the court case got rolling. But another delay of two months has been
declared, to see if George's children want to make a claim. Meanwhile,
besides Clive, Amo, and Doug Mitchell, Tom Drake has rejoined the fray,
claiming that George gave him a portion of the property. And no matter
what a jury finally decides, losers who think their claim comes from God
are unlikely to accept the decision. The battle continues...

Subject:        	Amendations
Date sent:      	Wed, 24 Mar 1999 15:31:31 -0500

Most of what I wrote still applies, though there are some corrections to
make. Hidden Manna's branchdavidian.com is not a mirror, but a sister site
containing the second part of the book at the sevenseals.com site. I also
probably should have expressed less certainty about the GeoCities page
being theirs. I assumed it was from the blatant way visitors were being
steered to the Seven Seals site, but I can't so that for sure. (The
GeoCities page appears to have been taken down recently.) And rather than
saying they had left messages in the other group's chatroom, I should have
said guestbook. Ron Cole apparently was scheduled for release in January.
According to another account, Teresa Moore is in New York, not
Pennsylvania. And it seems that Doug Mitchell does claim to have been
called by God to lead the Branch.

Also, I think I was planning to mention something about that "gunfire"
the tourist office told you about. That was an incident where Ron Cole,
Wally Kennet, and Andrew Hood came onto the property to take over Amo's
museum (a building Hood had built). According to Amo, she fired once into
the air, and the three backed off until the sheriff's deputies arrived and
arrested Amo and Cole and Kennet, who were armed. My understanding is that
the charges against Amo were ultimately dropped or dismissed, while Cole
and Kennet were charged with firearms violations.

Date sent:      	Tue, 21 Sep 1999 15:36:56 -0500
From:           	Harvey Luther II <country@wcc.net>
Send reply to:  	country@wcc.net
Subject:        	George-Roden

To how ever it may concern I new MR.Roden Personly and spent 29 Days of
my life with the Man Before he Died and I can Tell you and this entire
Planet that the Man was not Crazy we all NO that Koresh was CRAZY!~ all
MR.Roden Wanted was his rightfully own Land!~ That"s all, I no the Truth
and the Whole Store behind the Story!~
                                     Thanks:-)

From: "Phillip Pope" <rocnjava@hotmail.com>
To: webmaster@dan.tobias.name
Subject: Your web site
Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2002 02:16:14 -0500

Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 10:46:17 -0500
From: "Douglas F. Mitchell" 
Organization: The Branch
To: webmaster@dan.tobias.name
Subject: Doug Mitchell/The Branch

Dear Dan,

    I have read you article about your visit to Mt. Carmel Center, and 
even saw your brief article on me. I did not think to write you before I 
came to realize that you are quoted in many different sources. 
Therefore, I thought you may want to update your info on me and add a 
link to our/my web site. You are incorrect in say that I do not profess 
to be the leader of the true Branch Davidian Seventh Day Adventists. It 
is exactly the opposite, and all of the other off-shoots know it. But I 
have not been active in putting my status in the forefront, but rather 
my teachings, as you will see from this link -

http://www.the-branch.org/study15.html

    As you will see in that article, I was able to defeat both the 
Koreshians' and Amo Bishop's claims to being the Trustees of the 
association (and thus the property) in 2000. The judge would not allow 
my claims into the trial because of me claiming to be the president of 
the Association. It is all in the link I am sending.

Thank you for your time.

Doug Mitchell