If you would like to understand better the sort of behavior
that we saw in connection with the Waco tragedy, I'd strongly
recommend reading _When Prophecy Fails_, by Leon Festinger,
Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter (available as a Harper
Torchbook). It goes a long way towards explaining how a 
belief system can be so strong as to withstand even overwhelming
disconfirmatory evidence. At least, read the first chapter.
Interestingly, just as the Branch Davidians had roots in the
Seventh-Day Adventist movement, the SDAs themselves had their
roots in the Millerite movement of the first half of the 19th
century--a movement that expected the end of the world in 1843,
was disappointed when it did not take place, and wound up as
a church.

Bill
