Dear Jon,

This is the third book by you that I've read, the first two being Into the Wild and Into Thin Air. I've given all three books five sparkly stars because I absolutely love your journalistic though artful writing style. However, I must admit that while I thoroughly enjoyed both Into the Wild and Into Thin Air, I just could not relate in any shape or form to the adventure/thrill seeking mentality that drove the characters in those two works. Sure, I was fascinated, captivated, and entertained, but in a detached sort of way.

But this, Under the Banner of Heaven, this resonated so much so that I found myself repeatedly resisting the urge to offer up an enthusiastic amen after an especially insightful and enlightening passage, and there were many.

So a sincere, thanks.

Yours Truly,
A Fan

Okay...so What is this book about?: Well, that's a tough one. On one hand, I think this book tells the story of two fundamentalist Mormon brothers who, proclaiming to be inspired by their God, commit the viscous murder of their sister-in-law and baby niece. However, that is simply the glue that seems to hold it all together, since a good deal of the book is spent describing the origins (often bloody) of the Mormon church and its founder, Joseph Smith, while another large chunk is used to explore Mormon fundamentalism and extremist branches of the main LDS church with a big chunk spent on some of the fundamentalist's more controversial practices, like polygamy.

On a grander scale, I think this book is about the birth of a religion(the good and the bad) whose inception is relatively recent (less than 200 years) and as a result is well documented.

And finally, I think this is a book that tries to make sense of how one man's sacred belief can be another man's bizarre delusion.

What I loved about the book: While the history of Mormonism is fascinating and the murders/kidnapping/crimes committed by some more extreme fundamentalists are sensational enough to make for an emotionally-charged story, what I really enjoyed about this book was the discussion that surrounded the determination of Roy Lafferty's mental health.

Roy Lafferty is an excommunicated member of the Mormon church who turned to a more extreme form of Mormonism, a purer version in his view. He claimed and sincerely believed that God commanded him to kill his sister-in-law, her young daughter, along with two acquaintances he felt bore responsibility for his wife divorcing him, Richard Stowe and Chloe Low. Luckily, either by sheer luck or divine intervention (whichever you choose) Low and Stowe would be spared. Unfortunately, Brenda Lafferty and her daughter Erica were not.

While it almost seems to reason that any man capable of coldblooded murder is insane or at least mentally ill, the law looks at it differently. And in this case the determination of Roy's mental state lent itself to a provocative discussion.

n  Whether Ron lived or died would hinge entirely on whether a jury could be convinced that his religious beliefs--including his certainty that God had commanded the removal of Brenda and Erica Lafferty--were not only sincerely held but also so extreme as to be a delusional artifact of a diseased mind.

Such a defense would unavoidably raise the same difficult epistomological questions that had come to the fore after the Tenth Circuit Court's ruling in 1991: if Ron Lafferty were deemed mentally ill because he obeyed the voice of his God, isn't everyone who believes in God and seeks guidance through prayer mentally ill as well? In a democratic republic that aspires to protect religious freedom, who should have the right to declare that one person's irrational beliefs are legitimate and commendable, while another person's are crazy? How can a society promote religious faith on one hand and condemn a man for zealously adhering to his faith on the other?

This, after all, is a country led by (or at least at the time) a born-again Christian, President George W. Bush, who believes he is an instrument of God and characterizes international relations as a biblical clash between forces of good and evil. pg 294n

n  ...and just how many Americans have killed and died for "God and their country"?n

Also taken from the testimony of Noel Gardner, M.D., a psychiatrist affiliated with the University of Utah Medical School as it appears in this book.

n  Later, Gardner expounded further on the distinction between believing in preposterous religious tenets and clinical delusion. "A false belief", he reiterated, "isn't necessarily a basis of a mental illness." He emphasized that most of mankind subscribes to "ideas that are not particularly rational...For example in something referred to as trans-substantiation. That is when the priest performs the Mass, that the bread and wine become the actual blood and body of Christ. From a scientific standpoint, that is a very strange, irrational, absurd idea. But we accept that on the basis of faith, those of us who believe that. And because it has become so familiar and common to us, that idea of the virgin birth, which from a medical standpoint is highly irrational, but it is an article of faith from a religious standpoint." pg 298n

Referring to testimony from a Dr. Wootton:

n  All kind of things are accepted by one culture or another that would appear crazy or extreme to those outside the culture, Wootton agreed. pg 300n

Dan Lafferty's response when asked to consider if he felt that it was possible that like the terrorists of September 11th, he was misguided.(Dan, Ron's brother, was his partner in the crime.)

n  "I have to admit, the terrorists were following their prophet," Dan says. "They were wiling to do essentially what I did. I see the parallel. But the difference between those guys and me is, they were following a false prophet, and I'm not." pg 318n

n  ...10,000 religions...and only ONE can be right...n

To whom would I recommend this book? I'd recommend this book to anyone who enjoys investigative journalism with an artistic flare and who is open to discussion of religious belief. In the last chapter, Krakauer shares his own personal non-religious stance, and I think that his skepticism is transparent throughout the story. He obviously isn't making a case in support of Mormonism, or religious belief in general, though he's not advocating against it either, at least not overtly. But one can sense that he doesn't relate to the leap of faith many of the people he interviews have taken.

I'll end with two more excerpts both taken from an interview with DeLoy Bateman, a once fundamentalist Mormon/polygamist (not all fundamentalists are polygamists) who is now an atheist, as he reflects on his non-belief. His sentiments happen to mirror my own.

n  "Could there be a supreme power out there somewhere? Is there a grand plan behind the big bang, the creation of the universe, the evolution of species? I don't know, I suppose it's possible; I guess I'd like to at least allow for the possibility in the back of my mind. But common sense tells me otherwise." pg 328n

Then later in their interview:

n  "It's amazing how gullible people are," DeLoy continues. "But you have to remember what a huge comfort the religion is. It provides all the answers. It makes life simple." pg 331n

When Dan got inside the duplex he found his 15-month-old niece, Erica, standing on her crib, smiling up at him. The child probably mistook him for her father (Dan’s younger brother Allen) because he and Dan looked alike. Dan then spoke briefly to her happily smiling niece then slit her throat with a 10-inch boning knife.

Thereafter, Dan went to the kitchen where the child’s young mother Brenda (his brother Allen’s wife) was being guarded by his other brother Ron. Brenda’s face was already bloodied by the previous mauling she had received from them. They continued beating her for a while then Dan likewise slit her throat with the same boning knife. When Allen got home and found his wife and only child with their heads almost completely severed from their bodies, he immediately knew his brothers were the culprits.

Was Dan insane? No, he was not. In fact, during his trial his lawyer tried to argue his innocence by claiming he was out of his mind when he brutally murdered his sister-in-law and niece. But the court found him completely sane. But maybe he was on drugs? No. He did not even smoke or drink.

So why? Because God told him to do it. In fact, before he slit the throat of his niece Erica he spoke to her for a while saying: “I’m not sure what this is all about, but apparently it’s God’s will that you leave this world; perhaps we can talk about it later.” Throughout his life, Dan maintained that he was not guilty of murder or homicide although he admitted killing Brenda and her daughter. He said he only did God’s will and doing God’s will is not a crime. He never had any remorse for what he had done.

They were Mormons. Ben and his brothers (except Allen, the youngest), however, were Mormon fundamentalists. They believed that it is the original teaching of the founder of Mormonism, the prophet Joseph Smith, that a man can marry as many women as he likes, and that it is the women’s duty to subject themselves to polygamous marriages. So in some Mormon fundamentalist communities one could see 50-, 60-year-old men with 20, 30 or 40 wives, some of them as young as 13, 14 or 15 years of age. Some even marry their own daughter. No courtship is needed. A woman (or a young girl) would only be told that a man, in a heavenly vision, had been commanded to get her as his wife. So she should marry him or face eternal damnation for a refusal would be a direct disobedience to God’s will. This is enough for another “celestial marriage.”

Except for their youngest Allen, Dan and his brothers, late in their adulthood, had come to the conclusion that polygamy was an original teaching of God’s prophet Joseph Smith and that mainstream Mormonism’s decision to abandon the practice (for political expediency and as a matter of survival since earlier they had been persecuted for it although Joseph Smith himself had about 40 wives in secret) was a perversion of God’s instructions. The problem, however, is that their respective wives, used to monogamy, didn’t like the idea of their husbands bringing new wives home. This opposition was emboldened by the support they got from the educated and feisty Brenda and her husband’s refusal to be co-opted by his brothers.

If God did not decide to meddle it would just have remained that way: Dan and his brothers remaining in their homes, with just one wife each, dreaming of their personal harems. Unfortunately, God appeared before Dan and told him that His will should prevail no matter what and this can be done if the pesky Brenda, her child and two other persons who had lent their support in opposing their polygamous idea are “removed” from this world.

Dan closed his eyes while decapitating Brenda and the child. But he was at peace with himself before, during and after the deed was done. After all, it was not his, but God’s will, that it had to happen.

Christopher Hitchens once said that it is religion which can make an otherwise decent man to commit evil acts. And if you study the history (and even the current practices) of the world’s more well-known religions you’d realize that this is so very true.

Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon religion, was a crackpot. But a very charismatic one, as probably all founders of religions are. What is so revealing, however, is that even if Mormonism (like Scientology) is a fairly recently-invented religion whose charlatanism can easily be established by historical records, it has grown into a major religious movement so that right now there are in fact more Mormons than Jews in this planet.

So what makes Mormonism tick despite its dubious background? Well, it is as simple as its having a charismatic founder with a captivating tale of wonder and having people gullible enough to latch on to its promise of hope and salvation. Religion does not really need to be true. It can gain strength, grow and survive millennia if it can attract and maintain adherents one generation after the next.

Indeed, Mormonism has practically all the ingredients which long-established religions have had. It has an angel, Moroni, who brought tidings of great joy and wonder to Joseph Smith. It has its own bible/koran, the Book of Mormon, which Joseph Smith translated from some magical tablets delivered straight from the heavenly realms (a hoax, but it didn’t matter); its own priesthood caste in suits, system of belief, persecutions it survived miraculously (they were chased here and there ala-Exodus of the Old Testament until they reached Utah), martyrs of the faith (including Joseph Smith himself who was murdered), an awaited Messianic guy (whom they call the “one mighty and strong” who will “set in order the house of God”), prophecies (some of which came true), the concept of the “chosen people”, its apocalyptic visions and what-have-you.

Young religions like this, which succeed despite their verifiable foundations based on chicaneries, would make you wonder what the real score is about these ancient religions we have now whose origins are shrouded in unverifiable myths and legends as they all happened at the far fringes of history.

At present there are about 10,000 religious sects/groups, each one proclaiming that theirs is the only one which holds the truth. Even in major religions we have, say, the Christians who look down upon the clueless Jews who had not realised that their awaited Messiah had already arrived some 2,000 plus years ago; of Muslims claiming that theirs is the final revelation and therefore it is the real repository of the truth; the Mormons saying, in turn, that their religion is the newest and therefore the truest; and the Scientologists (Tom Cruise and his gang) thumbing them all down, claiming that theirs is not just based on heavenly/galactic wisdom, but on some real science as well. So if you believe what it is that your dear religion says you must believe in for your salvation, and your faith is strong, realize nevertheless that there are millions or billions of others in this same world who believe differently and whose faith is as strong (if not stronger) than yours.

Anthony Storr, in “Feet of Clay: Saints, Sinners and Madmen: A Study of Gurus” had pointed out:

“Both revelation and delusion are attempts at the solution of problems. Artists and scientists realize that no solution is ever final, but that each new creative step points the way to the next artistic or scientific problem. In contrast, those who embrace religious revelations and delusional systems tend to see them as unshakeable and permanent…

“Religious faith is an answer to the problem of life…The majority of mankind want or need some all-embracing belief system which purports to provide an answer to life’s mysteries, and are not necessarily dismayed by the discovery that their belief system, which they proclaim as ‘the truth,’ is incompatible with the beliefs of other people. One man’s faith is another man’s delusion….

“Whether a belief is considered to be a delusion or not depends partly upon the intensity with which it is defended, and partly upon the numbers of people subscribing to it.”


Is it a good thing to point these out in the hope of promoting self-examination of one’s “faith”? Bertrand Russel had this to say:


“One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it…

“You find as you look around the world that very single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the coloured races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world…

“My own view of religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race. I cannot, however, deny that it has made some contributions to civilization. It helped in early days to fix the calendar, and it caused Egyptian priests to chronicle eclipses with such care that in time they became able to predict them. These two services I am prepared to acknowledge, but I do not know of any others.”

This 2003 book by Jon Krakauer provides a well crafted interweaving of two histories: the origin and evolution of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), and a modern double murder committed in the name of God by brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who subscribed to a fundamentalist version of Mormonism. These histories are interrelated because the murder was motivated by endeavors of the Lafferty brothers to follow their understanding of the original manifestation of LDS teachings that enabled all believers to receive and interpret messages from God. They believed they were obeying the will of God by committing the murders.

I particularly found interesting the portion near the end of the book that excerpted portions of the trial transcript regarding the sanity of the defendant Ron Lafferty. The defense made the case that the crime was motivated by delusional belief, and since the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed. (DSM-IV) states “false beliefs” by definition are delusions it logically follows that the defendant is innocent due to insanity.

The prosecution countered the defense insanity argument with testimony stating that the beliefs of the Lafferty brothers were religious faith beliefs no more insane than many other well known orthodox religious beliefs such as consubstantiation, virgin birth, and resurrection of the dead. The jury apparently agreed with the prosecution because they voted to convict.

The viciousness of the crime as described in this book took my breath away. Much of the Mormon history and the behavior of the fundamentalists' attempts to follow that early history were also shocking. The LDS is especially handicapped with a tradition that encourages all believers to think they can be prophets capable of receiving commands from God. All religions have some history and beliefs that don't holdup well under the scrutiny of twenty-first century sensibilities. Mormons are particularly burdened because its embarrassing history is less than two hundred years old and occurred during the age of the printing press. Thus it's well documented.

Horrifying yet compulsively readable, which I'm starting to think is Krakauer's MO. I liked the back and forth between modern day and the early history of the Mormon Church, though I'm not sure the one informs the other as much as Krakauer implies. In pretty much every religion you can find violence in history and in the modern age, and the existence of fanatics now doesn't seem to me directly related to the paranoias of a young and persecuted people. Still, it was interesting to hear how violence was indeed a big part of the birth of the Mormon church.

The interviews with Dan were chilling, and I continue to be baffled that the people around him and Ron were so nonchalant about their "revelation" about murdering a baby. I feel incredibly angry even now thinking of what their and the other brothers' wives went though; the misogyny (and racism) baked into the belief system is staggering. I think that's my biggest takeaway - whatever the "good" aspects of a religion, holding the inferiority of a gender or race as sacred will inevitably lead to immoral abuses.

I've felt quite ashamed that as a avid Nonfiction reader, I hadn't read anything by Jon Krakauer. Krakauer is probably most known for his book Into the Wild which was later adapted into a movie. He has also written many more books that are beloved by the Nonfiction community. I decided to read Under the Banner of Heaven because of the Hulu series. I plan on watching it this holiday weekend so I needed to read the book.

Under the Banner of Heaven is part True Crime part History of the Mormon religion. Going in I didn't know much about Mormons.

Here are the things I "knew" about Mormons:

1. They are racist against Black people
2. Utah is their home base
3. Some of them are polygamist
4. Warren Jeffs
5. Elizabeth Smart
6. Mitt Romney
7. The play The Book of Mormon

So I was very happy to see that a large portion of this book would be about the history of Mormons. I'm not going to voice my opinion of Mormons belief systems because I was raised Catholic and those beliefs are also very wild if you think about it. But I will say that I'm confused by what makes one group a Religion and what makes another a Cult...I'm just gonna leave it at that.

I haven't read any reviews for this book but I do wonder if some people hated this book because it's pitched as a True Crime book about the murder of a woman and her infant daughter. Only for it to really be an exploration of religious fundamentalism and the history of Mormonism starting with its founder Joseph Smith. I personally loved this book but if you only wanted True Crime and don't read History, then it must have been annoying. I actually found myself being more interested in the history part than I was in the crime. I assume the show will focus exclusively on the murders but I do hope we get some info about the religion because religion is the motive for the crime.

I can't wait to read more Jon Krakauer books in the future. I'm not sure which I'll read next but if they are anything like this book than I'm sure I'll love them.

A Must Read!

I highly recommend Under the Banner of Heaven to History lovers and True Crime enthusiasts.

This book is great for it's depiction and unbiased view of Mormonism.

I finished this days ago but haven't had any idea what to write about it. A book like this is bound to have a lot of detractors and outright haters. Yet, I'm grateful that there are people out there with the courage and tenacity to come out with works like this.

The book itself goes back and forth between the murders of a mother and her baby girl by the Lafferty brothers (ostensibly under God's instructions) and a detailed history of the founding of the LDS church and its subsequent split with the so-called fundamentalists. I originally intended to learn more about the mainstream church and teachings as practised today, but as the author explains in the "Author's Remarks" buried at the end after the endnotes (which I almost missed), the more he dug into the history, the more he got sidelined towards the fundamentalist aspects of the religion. There is just too much violence, murder and other downright unsavoury aspects in its history to be ignored.

This book was a compelling and informative read. I enjoyed it tremendously. Some parts were repetitious but I found them to be helpful due to the numerous characters and inter-relationships involved. In particular, it offered great insights into the power of belief and the capacity of the human mind to meld mortal desires with divine inspiration. There was also a very interesting discourse on whether extreme religious fervour can rightly be classified as mental insanity where crime is involved, a point which formed the crux of Don Lafferty's subsequent trial.

There is a particular passage in the book which really struck me. When Dan Lafferty was asked how he could know that what he did wasn't every bit as misguided as what bin Laden's followers did on September 11, his reply was "I have to admit, the terrorists were following their prophet. They were willing to do essentially what I did. I see the parallel. But the difference between those guys and me is, they were following a false prophet, and I'm not."

As the writer so accurately puts it "Common Sense is no Match for the Voice of God."

I really wanted to find fault with this book so that I might suggest the alternate title `Into the Trash' but, fortunately, that was not the case. Contrary to what many reviewers would have you believe, `Under the Banner of Heaven' is not poorly researched nor is it intended to be an attack on religion in general or the Mormon Church in specific. Krakauer's portrayal of early LDS history is well-supported, often by church records. In cases where he ventures into speculation he says so and limits his speculation to cases, such as the Powell expedition murders, where supporting evidence exists. Krakauer showed restraint in these chapters by choosing not to include the murder of the U.S. Survey party of John W. Gunnison and other suspicious deaths in the area.
What I found most fascinating, though, is the theological issues that this book brings up. Krakauer does not denigrate religion per se but poses the question of what is the dividing line between faith and fanaticism. If we can believe that God told Isaiah to kill his own son, why can't we believe that he didn't also tell Dan Lafferty to kill his brother's wife? It's an unpleasant question but it makes you think and that is something Jon Krakauer is very good at.

Fascinating, but really difficult to get through because of how outraged I felt about some of the content... like all the brainwashing, or the racism/sexism, or all the men marrying their daughters. This is more a history of how fundamentalist Mormon thought branched off of the contemporary Mormon Church (and the players involved), rather than a true crime account of the murder of Brenda and Erica Lafferty.

I think Krakauer manages to navigate the complexities of this religious history in a compelling storyline, although his commentary definitely leans secular in tone. Followers of any sort of god might have a difficult time navigating the sections on the nature of religious belief, but as a non-believer I agreed with much of Krakauer's analysis.

Overall, I learned a ton and think the content will stick with me, albeit none of it is favorable to religion, especially under the Mormon Church.

Ron and Dan Lafferty insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl. While towards the end you do get the court case and proceedings, majority of this book was a complete history on the LDS church. I mean I like a good history book, but I don't want it thrown at me under the guise of something else. I now know more about LDS and FLDS than I ever wanted to know so thanks I guess.

This is really 3.5 stars, and it is really 3.5 stars for one reason.

First, I have to say that Krakauer's writing is fantastic. He sweeps up the reader. He tells stories wonderfully. He never talks down to either his reader or his subject. For instance, in this book it would have been quite easy for Krakauer to protray every polygamist as evil. This he does not do; in fact, he seems to like DeLoy Johnson. Overall, his protrayal of people seems to be fair.

The problem I had, and it wasn't until I finished the book that I had it, is that Krakauer doesn't fully do what the book supposedly sets out to do. I understand much more about Mormon history and Mormon fundamentalism, but Krakauer does not do that good a job of showing how the Lafferty brothers were made killers. In other words, while it tries to discover why people do bad things in the name of religion, it doesn't fully do so. In fact, it doesn't really do so.

I don't know if I can write an unbiased review of Under the Banner of Heaven. I'll say this: Krakauer's well-researched, exceedingly well-written 2003 book, which is 1/3rd a true crime examination of the brutal 1984 murders of Brenda Lafferty and her young daughter Erika by two Fundamentalist (i.e. polygamous) Mormons Dan and Ron Lafferty (her brothers-in-law) and 2/3rds an exhaustive examination of the Mormon religion (particularly its violent foment), is a fascinating read. 

What I have some trouble with is: I can't get over the idea that Krakauer had a gigantic axe to grind with religion/faith in general, and Mormonism in particular. He's such a talented writer that you don't (or at least I didn't, anyway) realize the spin he's thrown on his account until you've been convinced that all religions are ridiculous, and none more so than the hucksterism opportunely ideated by the likes of Messrs. Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, et al. While I agree with much Krakauer had to say, his message in hindsight feels almost like reverse-proselytizing, which is almost as discomfiting as entertaining the efforts of those men in white shirts, clip-on ties, and black pants trying to meet their two-conversions-per-annum quota here in the middle of the (Baptist) Bible Belt. Still, Krakauer's points are persuasive enough to give anyone pause about the Fundamentalist Mormon faith (if not its still-strong ties to mainstream Mormonism), which is why I give a book four stars that made me so uncomfortable while reading it.