Verdict Watch: Amish Hair-Cutting Trial

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Sam Mullet

In its fourth day of deliberations, the jury in the Amish hair-cutting trial has now twice sought clarity on the fine points. It isn't surprising that they would need both time and clarification with this case. Bear in mind that they have to determine the guilt or innocence of sixteen defendants, dressed in matching styles, and variously named Mullet and Miller. They are facing different sets of charges and have multiple defense attorneys with differing arguments.

Today the jury attempted to parse the fine points of their individual culpability in a conspiracy that may not involve all the parties.

The U.S. District Court jury in the trial of 16 Amish reconvened and promptly asked the judge if a conspiracy could involve just some of the defendants.

Judge Dan Aaron Polster told the jury that a conspiracy wouldn't necessarily need to involve all nine victims in the five attacks or all 16 defendants. Defense attorneys argued that the indictment specified a plot against nine victims, but Polster overruled them.

The indictment charges the defendants with conspiring to cause bodily harm to the victims. The judge said that if all 12 jurors agree that the government proved a conspiracy, the jury then must separately decide who plotted.

Last week, only three hours into deliberations, jurors called for more explanation of the hate crimes statute.

They asked for the definitions of "disfigurement" and "mental faculty."

Once all the attorneys and defendants assembled in the courtroom by 11:45 a.m., Polster said his reply would be "As for disfigurement, Congress did not define disfigurement so I am not either...so use your own common sense and your everyday experiences....look at how bodily injury is defined in the instructions as any injury to the body..."

".....as for mental faculty, (prosecutors) have not argued that any victim suffered an injury of a mental capacity...."

Prosecutors did not object to his language and only two defense attorneys asked for a minor modification but Polster denied the modifications.

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Mrs. Jesus?

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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A tiny fragment of papyrus may upend centuries of Christian dogma. Dr. Karen L. King, a professor at Harvard's Divinity School has in her possession the first documentary proof that Jesus may have had a wife -- or at least, that an early Christian sect believed he did. Thus far, the scrap has withstood multiple authentication tests and appears to be genuine.

The discovery reopens ancient debates about marriage and sexuality in a Christian context. It also calls into question much about the role and rights of women in the church.

Dr. King is a fairly impressive woman, herself. She's the first woman to hold the oldest endowed chair in the United States. She is an expert on early Coptic texts and Gnosticism and has written a number of books on newly discovered Gnostic texts such as The Gospel of Mary Magdala and Reading Judas.

A historian of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School has identified a scrap of papyrus that she says was written in Coptic in the fourth century and contains a phrase never seen in any piece of Scripture: “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife …'”

The faded papyrus fragment is smaller than a business card, with eight lines on one side, in black ink legible under a magnifying glass. Just below the line about Jesus having a wife, the papyrus includes a second provocative clause that purportedly says, “she will be able to be my disciple.”

. . .

But the discovery is exciting, Dr. King said, because it is the first known statement from antiquity that refers to Jesus speaking of a wife. It provides further evidence that there was an active discussion among early Christians about whether Jesus was celibate or married, and which path his followers should choose.

“This fragment suggests that some early Christians had a tradition that Jesus was married,” Dr. King said. “There was, we already know, a controversy in the second century over whether Jesus was married, caught up with a debate about whether Christians should marry and have sex.”

Dr. King argues that none of this should be taken as evidence that the historical Jesus was married pointing to the total absence of any discussion of the topic in first century texts. There is no known documentary proof of either his being married or unmarried from his own era. Rather, discussion and speculation about his marital status began to emerge during the second century as early Christians struggled to reconcile their spiritual calling and their sexuality. So the only valid discussion is over whether or not there was a religious tradition in which he was seen as married and this scrap, if authentic, is the first piece of empirical evidence of such a tradition.

Dr. King speculates that the text from which the fragment was taken was likely translated from a  Greek original, like many Coptic texts. She also sees a strong basis of comparison with The Gospels of Mary, Thomas, and the Egyptians and posits that the original from which this was copied also dates to the latter second century. This, historically, was when there was a great deal of speculation about Jesus's marital status.

In her paper, which can be downloaded here, Dr. King places the remnant in context with other writings of early Christianity. She categorizes this fragment as a piece of a gospel because it shows a dialogue between Jesus and his disciples. It is also reminiscent of a number of gospels, both Biblical and Gnostic, in its discussion of discipleship. She assigns it the working title of The Gospel of Jesus's Wife.

While Dr. King disavows any connection to the theories put forth in The Da Vinci Code, saying, “At least, don’t say this proves Dan Brown was right,” she also comes to the conclusion that the wife referred to is most likely Mary Magdelene. To do so, she attempts to discern whether the Mary named in the fragmentary text is his mother or the mysterious wife. She also dispenses, once again, with the canard that Magdelene was a prostitute.

The second issue is to identify Mary: Is she Jesus’s mother (→1) or his wife (→3)? Scholars have long noted “the confusion of Marys” in early Christianity, due not least to the ubiquity of this name (Maria, Mariam, Mariamme⁵⁹) for Jewish women in the period.⁶⁰    One of the most influential confusions has been the identification of Mary of Magdala with three other figures: Mary of Bethany (John 11:1-2; 12:1-3), the woman caught in adultery (John 8:3-11), and the sinner woman (Luke 7:37-38), resulting in the erroneous portrait of Mary Magdalene as a repentant prostitute.⁶¹    Another is the confusion of Jesus’s mother with Mary of Magdala, and even the substitution of the mother for her, for example as the first witness to the resurrected Jesus in John 20:11- 17.⁶²    These confusions make one cautious in identifying to whom “Mary” refers here.

. . .


The tradition of Mary of Magdala as an honored disciple of Jesus is well attested from the first century gospels, and is emphasized even more strongly in a variety of literature from the second and third centuries, notably The Gospel of Mary, The Dialogue of the Savior, The Gospel of Philip, and Pistis Sophia.⁶⁴    It was not until relatively late that Mary of Magdala was misidentified as a (repentant) prostitute, most clearly by Pope Gregory in the late sixth century.⁶⁵    Prior to the fourth century, she appears as a follower of Jesus during his ministry, was present at his crucifixion and burial, and, in the Gospel of John, is the first witness to the resurrection.⁶⁶    Yet in a number of these texts Mary’s status as a leader or disciple is directly challenged, notably by Peter.⁶⁷    GosThom 114, for example,states:...  (“Simon Peter said to them, ‘Let Mary leave us for women are not worthy of life’.”)⁶⁸    Here Peter’s rejection of Mary provides the opportunity for Jesus to refute the radical exclusion of all women from salvation (a position otherwise completely unattested in Christian literature).

. . .


These two cases from the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary identify Mary as the disciple whose status was being challenged, and in both cases her worthiness is defended by appeal to Jesus, the Savior. So, too, in GosJesWife →5, Jesus declares that “she is able to be/come my disciple”. This statement immediately follows Jesus’s reference to “my wife” in →4, indicating his affirmation that the ability to become his disciple concerns his wife, not his mother. This line of interpretation, then, suggests that it is the worthiness of Jesus’s wife, not his mother, which is being discussed. If so, then Jesus’s wife is named “Mary” here and can presumably be identified with Mary Magdalene. It is she who he declares is able to be his disciple.

Almost more interesting than the tantalizing notion that Jesus was married, or thought to be married, is Dr. King's discussion of marriage as an expression of a mystery tradition. Here she turns to The Gospel of Philip.

“The Lord did everything in a mysterious mode: a baptism and a chrism and a eucharist and a redemption and a bridal chamber” 67:27-30

She considers it likely that this was all part of a single ritual of unification.

According to the Gospel of Philip, death came into existence because Eve separated from Adam (GosPhil 68:22-26; 70:9-17101). The ritual of the bridal chamber effects the spiritual transformation of the initiand [sic] by uniting male and female (GosPhil 70:17-20), represented as the (present attainment of the) eschatological union of the redeemed person’s true light-self with his or her heavenly twin (σύζυγος) or angel (GosPhil 58:10- 14; 67:26-27). The ritual of the bridal chamber is thus necessary for salvation (GosPhil 86:4-8).¹⁰²

So Philip's gospel would seem to equate separation from God with the division into polarity and implies that this was the fall that cast us out of the Garden of Eden. What remains somewhat unclear is whether this marriage ritual is entirely metaphorical or if it depicts marriage in the earthly realm as a symbolic expression of reunification with God.

What comes to mind is The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, as discussed here. This is especially interesting if we consider Hancock and Bauval's proposition that the ideas in Western Alchemy can be traced to early Gnostic teachings.

Dr. King concludes, though, that what is suggested by this piece of text is a literal marriage between  Jesus and, most likely, Mary Magdelene. This marriage may or may not have been actual and historical, and there is no evidence either way. But it was a very real part of a larger Gnostic narrative that has been hinted at in other extant writings of the time. It also speaks to Jesus's revolutionary teachings about women as, at least, near equals in the early church. It is unlikely that the Vatican will take this any more seriously than it has other Gnostic texts which stand so completely at odds with its rigidly patriarchal doctrines. Michael D'Antonio in the Huffington Post explains:

The implications of professor King's discovery are profound. If Jesus was married, the main spiritual argument for male-only clergy and the celibacy of Roman Catholic priests falls into question. (Priests wouldn't need to abandon sex in order to imitate him.) But more importantly, if Jesus was a family man, then the claim to special status made by Catholic clergy, who regard themselves as supernaturally closer to God, loses much of its power.

Beyond internal Catholic Church politics, a married Jesus invites a reconsideration of orthodox teachings about gender and sex. If Jesus had a wife, then there is nothing extra Christian about male privilege, nothing spiritually dangerous about the sexuality of women, and no reason for anyone to deny himself or herself a sexual identity. In fact, one could argue that in their obsessive self denial -- of sexual pleasure, intimate relationships, and family - celibates reject the fullness of Jesus' example.

What this discovery could prove is that there was, in antiquity, a Christian tradition that didn't vilify women or their sexuality, or consider it a mark of piety to eschew them as ungodly temptresses. It might even make us get honest about the thinly veiled preoccupation with Jesus as a sex symbol. Because, you know, he was hot.

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Cafe

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Around the Web, Around the World

"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

The Medicine of the Wild Feminine with Tami Kent

The wisdom in the Wild Feminine, by our guest and author Tami Kent, is the medicine we need to reclaim and embody the power and pleasure that is the birthright of every woman. Given that three out of four women in America have experienced some form of sexual trauma, it is long overdue time for women to activate the energy of their bodies, reclaim the wild at the core, and understand that the creative essence within your own actual center is the key for giving life to your dreams. Tami is a women's health physical therapist and she joins host and shaman, Christina Pratt, to explain how attending to the physical and energetic alignment in the pelvic bowl, a woman can clarify and expand her creative potential so that this vibrant energy flows more freely in her body and all areas of her life. Tami is our next guest for the Society of Shamanic Practitioners sponsored interview series. In this series we explore how contemporary shamans are meeting the challenges of their world. Tami's work offers work offers a complimentary path for deep clearing and reclamation following soul retrieval and other healing practices.

This week's guest:
Tami Kent

Tami Kent, MSPT is a women's health physical therapist, founder of Holistic Pelvic Care for women, and author of Wild Feminine: Finding Power, Spirit & Joy in the Female Body. She is passionate about cultivating the creative energy, beauty, and wildness that is meant to run through all aspects of a woman's life. With a master's degree in physical therapy and the ability to read energetic patterns of the body, Tami provides a bridge between the realms of modern medicine and traditional women's wisdom. Her work offers a path for deep clearing and reclamation following soul retrieval and shamanic healing.

Tami has advanced training in multiple bodywork techniques, including certification in Maya Abdominal Massage and Infant Body Psychotherapy/Birth Trauma Resolution. She received her Masters from Pacific University and her Bachelor of Arts in Biology from the University of California at Berkeley. Tami lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and three sons.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012 at 11:00 AM Pacific

Log on to Listen
Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
Questions? Comments? Call: 1-512-772-1938

All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

Suzanne Toro

BeSimply...LoveSelf {Sacral Healing}

Join 'She' for 54 minutes to work on the Inner Self.

During this segment:

The sacral region. Healing and Sexual Violation...What it is and how we can stop participating. The path to healing...How to learn to stand in your own truth and avoid being manipulated and/or manipulate others. The need to control or be controled is rooted in a base fear. We will explore fears, manipulations, and the practice to release the cycle or manipulation within the sexual violation cycle.

Explore and Align with 'Self', How to reconnect to Self?

Please send in your questions to s@suzannetoro.com or call in during the episode.

Fri, September 21, 2012 12:00AM ET

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/suzannetoro

Just Energy Radio

Robert M. Schoch: Göbekli Tepe: The End Of A Civilization

Dr. Robert Schoch will join Dr. Rita Louise this week on Just Energy Radio where he will discuss the mysterious site of Göbekli Tepe.

Robert M. Schoch
Göbekli Tepe: The End Of A Civilization
Dr. Robert M. Schoch, a full-time faculty member at the College of General Studies at Boston University since 1984, earned his Ph.D. in Geology and Geophysics at Yale University. Dr. Schoch has been quoted extensively in the media for his pioneering research recasting the date of the Great Sphinx of Egypt using geological analyses, as well as for his work on ancient cultures and monuments in such diverse countries as Peru, Bosnia, and Japan.

Fri, September 21, 2012 03:00PM ET

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/just-energy-radio

Awake: Now What?

Welcome back Shelly Dressel, Channel, Teacher, Reiki Master

My conscious opening to spirituality began in the early ‘90's. During this time I was very drawn to the angels. I was also drawn to and read stories about near death experiences or people with heavenly encounters. From here, I began to explore the many avenues of spirituality. I'll begin by saying that spirituality to me is finding my truth about who I AM and what my connection is to the God/Goddess/All That Is. My life has been the journey of seeking what is truth for me. By 1994 I was curious about channeling. I was always seeking a greater connection and I thought, wow, this is truly a direct link and communication. I began with automatic writing, meaning I opened my mind (consciousness) to the higher planes and began writing down what information came into my head. A pivotal time for me was when I began working with Divine Will through Sanaya Roman. This is a powerful program with meditations and steps you can take to be able to blend more fully your soul and personality (ego). Then in 2001, a friend introduced me to some information about the Goddess of Creation. I felt such a strong resonance! One weekend in June of that year, I had a couple friends come to visit. While we were working with energy healing that weekend a friend and I both become infused with the energy of the Goddess of Creation. The Goddess created in us an alignment with her. My friend was on the table, lying on her stomach. I was at her head, when suddenly an intense white light came through a corner of the ceiling and infused my friend through the back of her head and me in my heart, throat, head centers and my third eye. We both felt an immense expansion and we began trying to speak in the language of creation. The words came out garbled, but we knew we would be working with them more! Less than two months after that I began to channel the Goddess verbally and have been doing so ever since.

For more information go to http://www.goddesslight.net

Sun, September 23, 2012 06:00PM ET

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/awake

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The Alchemy of Puss in Boots

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

I only just got around to seeing Puss in Boots with the family. It's a cute little film that could fairly be described as Shrek meets Zorro meets Desperado. And I have little doubt the boardroom discussion went about like that.

I was not, however, prepared for all the esoteric subtext in the movie. I do remember William Henry pointing out the stargate imagery in the Friskies commercial tie-in. Not that there's anything terribly new about fantastical imagery in children's stories -- including portals into magical lands. But it is kind of interesting that it's through a circular Stargate like opening. Having now seen the movie, I think it's at least arguable that the commercial is a thematic extension of the movie.

It had never occurred to me before that Jack and the Beanstalk is a kundalini metaphor. Now it all seems kind of obvious -- a magical vine that connects earth to heaven and leads to a winged creature that manufactures gold. No duh, huh?

But Puss in Boots ups the ante on that metaphor. Not only is the gold they discover in the shape of an egg, which connects it to core creation mythos. Puss's partner in crime is an egg, specifically Humpty Dumpty.

Humpty's lifelong ambition is to find and plant the magic beans of legend. So an egg is seeking golden eggs. And ultimately the base, mortal, and terribly fragile Humpty is transformed into the gold he is seeking.

And it really gets interesting when they plant the three beans and a tornado (vortex) rapidly forms overhead and connects to the freshly planted soil. Think of it as Shaktipat for beans.

Well, now, I guess we know how Jack's magic beanstalk was completed in a single night. I always found that part deeply mysterious -- kind of like Melusine's tower.

The rapidly surging beanstalk hoists the three conspirators toward the clouds. It brutally overtakes them, dragging them almost against their will, and knocking Puss's hat off his head. That relentless, overwhelming, uncontrollable force should be familiar to anyone who has experienced a kundalini awakening.

The beanstalk unfurls into a giant spiral, like a classic spiral staircase... or DNA... or the serpents on the Staffs of Asclepius or Hermes. Mostly, it put me in mind of William Blake's stunning depiction of Jacob's Ladder.

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Amish Hair-Cutting Case Goes to the Jury

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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The jury will begin deliberations today as to the guilt or innocence of Sam Mullet and fifteen of his followers.

Jurors will begin deliberating on Thursday whether Samuel Mullet Sr. and 15 of his followers are guilty of federal hate crimes for the attacks on nine Amish men and women last fall.

All 16 were charged with conspiracy to commit a hate crime, and some face charges of lying to police or withholding evidence. They face up to life in prison if convicted.

It's hard to get a sense of how a trial is going from press reports alone. But from those accounts, I can't help thinking this trial was a slam dunk for the federal prosecutors. They built a strong case and the defense closed quickly providing no witnesses. Sam Mullet's attorney Edward Bryan is certainly right that the burden of proof is on the prosecution and the defense has no requirement to mount a defense at all. But in this case it looks like they didn't present a case because they just didn't have a reasonable defense to present.

From the press accounts, their various defense strategies look to have been all over the map and internally contradictory. They disputed none of the factual elements of the case, neither the attacks themselves, nor the shocking disciplinary and sexual demands of the Bergholz bishop. They simultaneously claimed that these were not religiously motivated attacks, but based entirely on family and financial disputes, and that the attackers acted out of concern for the souls of their victims, which would seem to imply a religious motivation.

"These were acts of love," said attorney Dean Carro, who represents Lester Miller, who is accused of cutting his father's hair.

Miller and his siblings didn't intend to hurt their father or mother, Carro said. "The reasons they did these things is because they thought they deviated from the Amish path," he said.

Defense arguments wandered into the completely implausible and ridiculous.

"Use common sense," defense attorney Neal Atway told jurors. "What happened was offensive, but what crime was committed?"

Um... assault and battery? Is it a hate crime? That's debatable and something the jury will have to determine, but there's little question that these people were violated. I just don't think that trivializing the suffering of very sympathetic witnesses, who wept openly about their terror and shame as a result of these attacks, will go over too well. And some of these attorneys sound like schoolyard bullies telling victims to just get over it.

Attorney Brian M. Pierce scoffed at the idea that the haircutting amounted to bodily injury. Some of the victims said the shears used to take their hair bloodied their scalps. One bishop whose beard was cut refused to preach until it grew back.

"Emotional harm is not bodily injury," Pierce said. "The beards grew back."

As for Sam Mullet, who did not participate in the attacks themselves, prosecutors had to prove his direct involvement. They have definitely demonstrated that he had a dictatorial control over his followers, convincing them to spend up to twelve days in a chicken coop and to cut their own hair and beards, when they stepped out of line. He also used his authority to coerce sex from his own very reluctant daughter-in-law among others.

More damning still are some details that came out in the write-ups on the prosecution's closing argument.

The defendants openly discussed the attacks before and after they happened, and Mullet's followers brought him hair they cut as trophies and took pictures so he could see what the victims looked like after the attacks, Parker said.

Lest we forget, some of these trophies were recovered from Sam Mullet's property. And the prosecutor's reasoning is pretty solid.

"He is different from everyone else. He didn't get any blood or hair on himself, but none of the terror would have happened without him," Parker said.

All of the victims, she said, were people who had a dispute with Mullet over his religious practices and his authoritarian rule over the settlement he founded.

Mullet and his followers "believed they knew best how to practice the Amish faith and held the keys to heaven," Parker said. "If these assaults were merely personal, why did the defendants zero in on the beards and head hair?"

But the strongest indication that the prosecution put on a very strong case comes from Sam Mullet's attorney.

Mullet's attorney, Ed Bryan, said prosecutors presented a "pretty little package" that read like a movie script.

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Amish Trial Closes With Damning Testimony

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Federal prosecutors wrapped up their case against the Amish hair-cutting ring this week with strong testimony from several witnesses, including Sam Mullet's daughter.

Barbara Yoder was reluctant to testify against her father but, all the same, gave a very damning account.

Mullet's daughter, Barbara Yoder, testified that she never heard her father order any of the four hair- and beard-cutting attacks, but confirmed her father had endorsed the humiliating hair-shearings as disciplinary measures, and laughed when the men reported back to him in the aftermath of the attacks.

. . .

"He said it would help stop people from being Amish hypocrites," Yoder testified.

This is not the first evidence jurors have heard that Sam Mullet found the brutal, humiliating attacks hilarious.

As they listened to calls between Samuel Mullet Sr. and his nephew Lester Miller, the jury read an English translation because the pair had spoken in Pennsylvania Dutch, the primary language of the Amish. The jury was told the calls had originated from the Holmes County jail in Ohio.

On the recording, Mullet was heard laughing about members of the community carrying out more attacks and told his nephew to stay strong and to keep his mouth closed after Miller was arrested last October. "They are trying to tear this whole thing apart," Mullet said, referring to his community.

Yoder also testified to her father's bizarre disciplinary and sexual practices.

Barbara Yoder also described other means of self-discipline and penance advocated by her father, including spending up to 12 days at a time living in a chicken coop, submitting themselves to voluntary hair- and beard-cutting, and engaging in sexual relations with the wives of his followers.

Mullet's sexual exploits may well overshadow everything else in this trial. The extremely un-Amish-like behavior underscores the cultish nature of the Bergholz clan, whether prosecutors can use that word themselves or not. One salacious detail after another has come out in court, all thoroughly in context with the prosecution's theory that Mullet had absolute control over his flock.

FBI Agent Michael Sirohnen testified that when he arrested Sam Mullet, the bishop was in his bedroom with Lovina Miller, a married woman and one of about 18 families who are members of Mullet's Old Order Amish settlement in Bergholz, located about 100 miles southeast of Cleveland.

Lovina Miller is the daughter-in-law of Barbara Miller, who testified against her brother earlier in the trial. This makes her Mullet's niece-in-law. We already know that he coerced his own daughter-in-law into a sexual relationship. Lovina, though, he may have impregnated.

Barbara Miller, Sam Mullet's sister, said that her son's wife Lovina was also ordered to live with Mullet and became pregnant.

'I had a reason to dispute that (the baby) was Eli's,' Mrs Miller said. 'Once I found out she was pregnant it arose: Who is the Daddy?'

For all his claims of moving to Bergholz to live a more traditional Amish life, nothing about Sam Mullet seems terribly orthodox. Conservative to him seems to mean authoritarian. As his sister told the court, he was less about the New Testament compassion and forgiveness, that the Amish are so well-known for, and all about Old Testament "'eye for an eye' syndrome."

Tuesday the jury heard from cultural anthropologist and Amish expert Dennis Kraybill who testified that Mullet's Bergholz community is a "lone ranger group," with all the hallmarks of a cult. He was shocked and dismayed by the chicken coop, spankings, and "sexual counseling," explaining that none of it was consistent with Amish culture and religion. Their religious practice also seems to gone by the wayside.

"There was ample evidence that since 2009 they no longer held church services, and showed a complete disregard for traditional Amish doctrine," testified Kraybill, a cultural anthropologist and professor from Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania.

Kraybill also put into some context the relevant background on the rupture between Sam Mullet and the Amish community writ large.

Kraybill cited a historic 2006 bishop's meeting in Ulysses, Pa., at which more than 300 bishops learned about Mullet's shunnings and how some members of his clan were fearful of Mullet and were abandoning the Bergholz settlement in the middle of the night.

The bishops voted to overturn a half-dozen of Mullet's excommunications of Bergholz Amish members who had challenged his rulings or offended him by moving away. The conclave decided Mullet's excommunications were not made for biblical or religious reasons, and that he failed to consult his congregation, as required by Amish law.

"This was like an earthquake in the Amish world," Kraybill said.

One of the hair-cutting victims was a key figure in that decision was the prosecution's final witness. Bishop Raymond Hershberger helped to put into context how that decision was made and what a departure the whole thing was from Amish norms.

Hershberger was one of five Amish bishops who investigated the excommunication of eight families from Mullet's Bergholtz group in 2006 and voted to overturn those excommunications, which allowed other communities to accept the families.

Without that exception, a member or family shunned by one community would be shunned by all.

Despite the revolutionary nature of Mullet's excommunication policies and three hundred bishops' unprecedented rebuke of them, Bishop Hershberger was stunned to learn that Mullet and his followers were angry enough to take such brutal revenge. "I never realized Sam felt this way about me until this came up," he said.

Prosecutors rested their case in the Amish hair-cutting trial on Tuesday. So did the various defense attorneys representing a total of sixteen defendants, without calling a single witness. They did move to have the charges thrown out for lack of evidence, but Judge Polster disagreed and denied the motion, saying that a reasonable jury could conclude that there was a religious motivation.

Mullet's attorney Edward Bryan argued that there is no proof that he had coordinated the attacks but Judge Polster pointed to Mullet's having said, "We know what we did and why we did it," as evidence that could be reasonably construed as indicating Mullet's involvement.

Despite the fact that Sam Mullet did not choose to testify in his own defense, the jury heard plenty from the bishop in his own words. In addition to the jailhouse recording referenced above, an interview he did with WKYC-TV was entered as evidence. In it he actually takes responsibility for the attacks.

Mullet Sr. did admit that he knew about the raids, in which Amish men have their beards cut off, and Amish women and men have had their hair cut, but had nothing to do with the incidents.

"They say I did but they don't believe anything I say," Mullet said then, perched atop a bulldozer near the entrance of the road which houses his family enclave.

"Because I'm the oldest here and I'm the bishop, I'm responsible."

He also states explicitly, in that interview, that the attacks were religiously motivated, which will doubtlessly be unhelpful the defense's family disputes argument.

Closing arguments are being heard today and this case could go to the jury as early as this afternoon.

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The Trip from Bountiful

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

As discussed, Warren Jeffs appears to be totally losing it. Deranged proclamations, paranoia, mass excommunications, and propaganda blaming members for his continuing incarceration, have raised the concern of social agencies and law enforcement near his Yearning For Zion Ranch and other strongholds around the US. Now comes news that Canadian officials are also dealing with the fallout of an FLDS spinning out of control as the compound in Bountiful, British Columbia shows similar signs of distress.

Jeffs's earlier edict prohibiting sex and marriage for all but fifteen of his most faithful stewards and their selected females has resulted in hundreds of husbands and fathers being excommunicated and their families shattered. Numerous teens have also been excommunicated for innocuous offenses like wearing short sleeved shirts or improper hairstyles. Most tellingly, socializing with their friends is now a banishing offense. Wives have been reallocated like the chattel they are.

Six men from Bountiful, B.C., went to Provincial Court in Creston this week pleading for access to their 40 children after having been excommunicated by Warren Jeffs, the jailed leader of North America’s largest polygamous sect.

Earlier this year, the fathers were deemed to be “unworthy” by Jeffs, the prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Some of these men are actually risking their own legal standing because they're practicing polygamy -- and not necessarily willingly.

One told [attorney Georgialee] Lang he loves his first wife and had never wanted a second wife.

He told her how he’d been taken from his home one night and driven by church leaders on a circuitous route that ended in Nevada, where he married a woman he’d never met before.

One of things that is coming clearer as the curtain is peeled back on this insular sect, is that the men in FLDS are as much victims of Jeffs's tyranny as the women are -- except for those at the top of the food chain. As of now that would seem to be the fifteen men who have their pick of all the women, married or not.

Children are also being shuffled around and one of the petitioners believes four of his kids are living in the care of a woman other than his wife, who has since been reallocated.

In addition to banning all sex except for his chosen fifteen, Jeffs has also prohibited all intimacy and affection, except for handshakes. It's just so very 1984.

Mothers and fathers have been ordered not to touch or hug their children and toys, recreation, and games are no longer permissible.

The Bountiful elementary and secondary schools have, for the first time, refused government funding, opting to run the programs they desire. Reports have surfaced that school hours are now filled with YouTube videos of Jeffs’ preaching.

Yes, the children even have to watch telescreens of Big Brother Jeffs.

All of this is a test of faith. Followers must adhere to these guidelines until Jeffs is released from prison because, as discussed, he is blaming his incarceration on his followers.

While it's sordid and deranged, none of this is hard to figure out. It's simple divide and conquer. People who are able to form strong bonds with each other -- family, friendship, romantic love -- have split allegiances and won't be totally subservient. And the more powerless Jeffs feels, locked away in his prison cell, the more he intensifies his grip on his remaining followers. And anyone who he perceives as a threat to that authority has to go.

As discussed, I think this reallocation of wives to his fifteen chosen enforcers is a reward -- he's buying their loyalty with women's bodies. But there is something else it does which is in some ways more pernicious. It keeps those men from establishing strong emotional bonds. How can they with all those women and children and such totally imbalanced power dynamics. They don't have wives. They have sex objects and breeding stock.

These bizarre edicts are also a window into Jeffs's twisted psyche. He's in jail, unable to have sex with any of his many, many wives, so he's restricting sex. He's lonely so he's breaking down intimate relationships and friendships. I don't think this is just about his incarceration either. Jeffs's life story is one of isolation. He was a sickly child who did not play well with others. He was also a Peeping Tom, lusting after girls from a safe distance. He's odd, even by FLDS standards and was never so much part of a community as he was a power figure by inheritance. 

Perhaps the most telling of his bizarre new rules is his restriction on affection with children. Men are not allowed to touch any children at all. He has redefined touching children -- affectionately or even innocuously -- as adultery and its an excommunication offense. Note that it's adultery, not pedophilia. And then consider that Jeffs is a child molester. Not only was he convicted of marrying and impregnating underage girls, the court heard testimony that he had molested prepubescent children, including his then 5 year old nephew.

Many of the rulings Jeffs is dispensing from his jail cell are not exactly breaking new ground. He's been reassigning wives and families since he assumed leadership in 2005. What has changed is the scope and intensity as he struggles to keep his grip on power.

So far the displaced men of Bountiful are not having much luck through the courts. Interim orders have granted some visitation and have prohibited the wives from taking the children out of the district, but no other custodial rights have been granted to the frustrated fathers as yet. Meanwhile, they wait and pin hopes on signs like wives who are also considering leaving. Of course, it's much harder for women to get out than men.

There are signs that Jeffs's increasingly draconian leadership is backfiring and accelerating the fragmentation of his church. But shattered lives, damaged children, and at least one suicide, are a horrible price to pay. And it will most likely get a whole lot worse.

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