At times, I almost dream...
...I, too, have spent a life the sages' way
and tread once more familiar paths.
Perchance I perished
in an arrogant self-reliance an age ago,
and in that act,
a prayer for one more chance went up so earnest, so.
Instinct with better light let in by death
that life was blotted out not so completely...
but scattered wrecks enough of it
to remain dim memories...
as now, when seems once more...
...the goal in sight again.
Federal agents!
We are armed!
Move, move, move!
Get down on the ground!
We have warrants to search for the possession
of illegal firearms!
We are under orders to serve warrants for the arrests
of Vernon Warren, also known as Vernon Ephesian!
Move it! Move it! Over there! Come on! Come on! Let's go!
Move! Move! Move!
Somebody tipped Ephesian off.
He's somewhere on the compound.
- Ephesian? - Nothing.
We've covered 90% of the compound.
We have to find him. There's no sign of the weapons.
They've hid them somewhere.
Where haven't we covered?
Well, we can check the machine shop again.
Maybe they've got trapdoors.
Mulder.
Mulder!
Tear it apart.
Mulder?
Mulder, where are you going?
Intelligence reported
no hiding places beyond the yard.
Did you see someone?
I am he that liveth
and was dead.
And behold...
I am alive forevermore...
...my God, in the name of the city of my God which is...
No!
It's okay.
It's okay...
Bureau of Alcohol
Tobacco and Firearms transmission received.
0230 hours. 5 November '96, Apison, Tennessee.
Confirmed telephone trace from within Seven Stars compound.
BATF. This is Agent Kiley.
Uh, lookit, I'm not going to talk long, right?
I-I can't even believe that I'm even doing this.
Brilliant. Lookit-- Vernon--
he's got a lot of good ideas.
He's right about a lot, a lot of things,
but he's doing stuff to kids now that... it ain't good, right?
And I'm telling you, it's not why I signed on.
Okay, okay, easy.
Can you tell me your name, sir?
Call me Sidney.
Now, like I said,
Vernon-- he's hurting the little kids around here bad.
It ain't right.
And, man, the guns... my God.
Yeah, you could beat the whole Korean army here.
Oh, God, I can't talk no more. I got...
This call capped off an 18 month BATF investigation
of the Temple of the Seven Stars led by Vernon Ephesian.
The "Sidney" call convinced the attorney general
to give the go ahead for this morning's raid.
ATF intelligence reports were weak. I mean, our man Spooky
found Ephesian in a bunker ATF didn't even know was there.
The Bureau is responsible...
How did you know that?
Garbage in, garbage out...
Knock it off!
The reports are valid.
Illegal activities were going on at the Seven Stars compound.
Somehow they were alerted in time to hide the evidence.
Ephesian and his wives
are being held on, frankly, B.S. charges
of possession of dangerous chemicals.
And you know their attorneys will be pushing
for a quick arraignment.
They'll be out of here in less than 24 hours
if we cannot charge them.
Agents on site will continue to search
for evidence of illegal firearms.
And even more critical, find the informant "Sidney."
If they found out that he tipped us...
it's likely we're looking for a murder.
All right, go.
Agent Mulder, Agent Scully.
You were assigned to this operation to investigate
claims of Ephesian's paranormal abilities--
channeling, astral projection.
We believe that Ephesian is a paranoid charismatic sociopath.
He is obsessed
with the Book of Revelation and will use
his knowledge of biblical text
to get anything that he wants from his followers.
Ephesian had six women on the verge of suicide.
You witnessed it.
My concern is if the temple members are released,
any subsequent federal investigation
will ignite Ephesian's paranoia to such a degree
that we won't have another Waco on our hands...
...we'll have Jonestown.
I knew you were coming.
I've known for nine centuries.
It was written in the revelation of Jesus Christ...
"Behold...
"the Devil shall cast some of thee into prison
"that you may be tried.
"You'll have tribulation of ten days.
"Be thou faithful unto death,
and I'll give thee a crown of life."
But that message was to the church at Smyrna.
It's my understanding that your temple is the reincarnation
of the church of Ephesia.
Mine is the Temple of the Seven Stars,
all seven churches receiving the revelation.
And the members are not a reincarnation of the church.
Are you?
Oh, yes. I was present to hear Apostle John Mark
deliver his message of the apocalypse.
Vernon, if Sidney was unfaithful,
did he receive a "crown of life"?
There are no members of the temple
named or nicknamed Sidney.
But I know you don't believe.
See, I don't care if you think that I'm
Jim Jones or David Koresh.
I don't need you to believe or even like me.
But just for a moment,
I'd like you to put aside your investigation
for your own souls.
It is vital that you understand that soon, very, very soon,
all unfaithfuls, all disbelievers,
all beasts--
if that means me or this "Sidney" or you...
...all will be destroyed by God's mighty men.
It is what has been told by God will happen.
It is what has been told by God we must do.
Do this and the "Lord shall preserve you from all evil.
"He will preserve
"your soul.
"The Lord will preserve your going out...
and your coming in."
Skinner said no one else has come up with anything.
As you can see, they've started
to release members of the temple.
The compound remains under federal control, though.
Time is flying.
We've got six wives to question.
My estimate is 12 more hours of fire and brimstone
and not a second about Sidney.
Let's start with her.
My name is Melissa Riedal-Ephesian.
I'm 25.
Melissa, do you understand your right
to have an attorney present at this questioning?
It's okay.
Where are you from?
I-I don't know.
What about your family? Where do they live?
My real family is here.
How long have you lived there?
A year.
How long have you been married to Ephesian?
A year.
Does it bother you that he has other wives?
"And on that day, seven women shall take hold of one man,
"saying, 'We shall eat our own bread,
"'we shall wear our own apparel,
"'only let us be called by thy name
to take away our reproach.'"
That's quite a faith you have in Vernon there, Melissa.
I'd have a tough time if my husband
had so many children with other women.
Do you have a child by Vernon?
Someday.
Vernon has to wait until God tells him
when the right soul is ready to be reincarnated.
That's why Vernon's children are the most sacred members
of the temple.
We were told that Vernon's been hurting the children.
Have you ever witnessed any child abuse
at the temple, Melissa?
Lookit! I don't know where
you two are getting that from.
I mean, I saw a couple things.
I mean, you know, it-it could have been anything, right?
Melissa?
Melissa? No.
I don't know nobody called that.
Sidney?
What is this?!
The McCarthy hearings?
No, no.
Don't... don't know anybody by that name, no.
I saw a couple things.
It could have been anything, right?
Sidney, can you tell me who the President
of the United States is right now?
Who is the President of the United States?
What the hell kind of dumb question is that?!
That is a stupid question.
Harry Truman.
You're claiming Sidney is her past life
just because she mentioned Joe McCarthy?
It's not just that.
Somehow I just knew.
Ephesian and his wives
are being arraigned tomorrow morning.
That's about 15 hours to come up with something.
Come up with something? We found Sidney.
Voice spectrogram confirms that Melissa Riedel's vocal pattern
matches the ATF "Sidney" call.
Melissa Riedel is not cooperating.
But there is a personality within her that wants to.
We need a psychological catalyst.
I suggest we take her back to the compound.
Maybe exposing her to that environment without
Ephesian present will somehow enable Melissa to talk--
or a personality inside her.
Agent Scully, could this be some kind of a stall?
A staged version?
It's my understanding that multiple personalities are rare.
They're extremely rare.
In fact, many in the psychiatric community do not believe
that dissociative identity disorder exists.
What we've witnessed meets the criteria
established in the DSM-IV.
The presence of two or more distinct personality states
that recurrently take control over behavior,
including the protector identity-- Sidney.
The inability to recall important personal information.
She couldn't recall her own hometown.
Transitions from one personality state to another
are usually a matter of seconds
and are often caused by psychosocial stress.
Sidney appeared when we mentioned
that children had been abused.
But you remain unconvinced?
I believe the disorder exists, but in this case,
under these circumstances, I would have to know more.
If Melissa has multiple personalities,
would her-- his-- testimony even be admissible?
Judicial precedents have established that dissociative
personalities are responsible.
Yes, but we are responsible for Melissa Riedel.
What we are responsible for is the potential loss of 50 lives.
Do it.
You didn't even have the courage to tell Skinner
what you really believe--
that Melissa Riedel
is being invaded by her past-life incarnations.
Because he wouldn't believe me.
I don't believe that you feel responsible for those 50 lives.
Or Melissa Riedel.
You are only responsible to yourself, Mulder.
You're safe with us, Melissa.
The murderer's not here.
We know that events occurred here
that, uh, that may be painful.
You may not want to talk about them.
They may be so painful, you may be afraid to remember.
But to help the others--
to help the children and to help yourself,
we're here with you to listen--
to Melissa,
to Sidney, to whoever may need to talk.
Melissa...
Why you call me that?
What should I call you?
Lily.
Lily...
were any of your friends hurt in this room?
What?
Can you do this?
Melissa-- Lily...
...it's okay to tell me.
Lookit, leave the kid alone.
You hear me?
She doesn't want to talk, right?
No way!
I'm sending her home.
Sidney, you can all go home.
You can all be safe if you just tell us where they hid the guns.
What's wrong?
The weapons were placed in the bunker
which they had built the night before.
That's why they weren't on the ATF reports.
The federals would arrive in the morning
just before the sun.
Realizing the government's might and number,
most believed they, indeed, would never again
see the light of day--
just as they had watched their brothers die
days before on Missionary Ridge.
We had received word
of General Cleburn's retreat from the Union Army.
As a nurse, I had been ordered from Hamilton County
to meet the troops, but...
in actuality, I was searching for him,
knowing that he would attempt to remain in Tennessee
rather than retreat to Dalton.
I found him here
amongst the others who had been lost
as General Thomas pushed through the Confederate line.
The federal troops would appear from that direction.
Rather than retreat any further,
they fought them--
hiding us in the bunker.
Inside, I could smell the smoke,
hear the rifles...
feel the bodies
as they dropped onto the ground above.
Every last one.
26th of November...
I was here.
As were you.
This is the field where I watched you die.
Who are you calling?
I'm arranging for a therapist
trained in hypnosis to be at the command center.
Because hypnosis is used
in the treatment of dissociative identities
to bring forth a patient's various personalities?
She wants to talk, Scully.
It's a matter of getting it out of her.
No, it's about regressing her to a past life.
Don't do this to her, Mulder.
This poor woman's mind-- her life-- is in shreds.
Just being married to Ephesian indicates
that she is susceptible to suggestion.
You... you were there, Scully!
You saw it.
You heard it.
Why can't you feel it?
How could I know about a bunker
in a field where I've never been?
And why is it that Vernon Ephesian is, reported by you,
a paranoid sociopath because he believes
that he lived in Greece a hundred years ago,
and you're not, even though you believe
you died in that field?
I'm talking to Melissa.
In the last year at the Temple of the Seven Stars,
is there anything that happened that you thought was wrong?
That hurt you?
Yes.
There was a...
...woman who came to the temple.
She and her son had been living on the street.
What was her name?
Elizabeth.
Her son was Scott.
Vernon took a liking to the boy.
He said that he was a prophet returning.
He took the boy away from his mother.
Took him away? How?
Vernon's children are the grandchildren of God,
kept separate from the others.
The mother's heart was broken.
She was afraid.
The mighty men...
Late... night...
Liz sneaks in to see Scott.
Oh, he was happy.
She brings... she brings him
a Butterfinger she stole from the kitchen.
Vernon... Vernon... Vernon... catches them.
The mighty men...
they pull her away...
and beat her in front of her son.
The boy, "No! No! Mom..."
Vernon... Vernon...
Vernon pulls him by...
Vernon pulls him by his hair.
Pulls down his pajamas and hit him.
"You're not a child of God.
Garbage," he calls him.
Told him to sleep in the trash... with the rats.
Oh, the mother...
the mother cries...
but Vernon beats him...
in front of her.
"Oh, oh, no, no, no, no..."
Lookit!
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant move.
What do you want to know?
Just... just... leave Melissa alone.
She doesn't need to go through that anymore.
Where are the guns?
The... the bunkers. Yeah.
Yeah, uh... the Civil War bunkers.
Vernon... Vernon... Vernon and his goons know, but I don't.
I really don't.
Maybe there's a map
of the battlefield down in the records.
You know how to find the other bunkers.
Mulder...
Melissa...
It's me, Melissa.
I want you to go back.
Back to the field.
Oh...
Your eyes may have changed shade...
but it cannot color the soul behind them.
We have come together in this life, this time,
only to meet in passing.
It is so heartbreaking to wait.
I miss you.
Mulder, this is a product of her illness.
She couldn't answer
the question of the battlefield.
She gave us no specific names,
no information to prove her validity.
There is nothing that we can use
to prove that this is the truth.
There's one way.
Mulder, Ephesian's arraignment
is in two hours.
There is no time to be doing this.
Wouldn't you, Scully?
Wouldn't anybody?
I want you to go into your past,
beyond your life as Fox Mulder.
What do you see?
Ghetto streets.
Shattered glass.
Bodies of the dead.
I'm a woman.
A Jewish woman. Poland.
My son is with me.
He is Samantha.
Samantha?
I thought Samantha was your sister.
In this life, she is my son.
I see my father.
He's dead in the street.
He is Scully...
but now...
he's gone on now.
Waiting for us.
Souls... come back together.
Different...
but always together,
again and again...
to learn.
I can't go
to my father.
Gestapo is standing next to him.
An officer.
He's Cancer Man.
Evil returns as evil.
But love... love...
souls mate eternal.
My... husband... is taken away from me
to the camps.
He is Melissa.
We're always taken away.
I'm rising...
I'm rising now.
I'm rising now...
high above... my body.
Above the field.
My face is bloody.
Near the bunker.
The federals are gone.
My sergeant is also dead.
He is Scully.
Sarah holds me.
She is sad.
She is Melissa.
She lives...
near the battle.
Hamilton County.
Her name is Kavanaugh.
Sarah Kavanaugh.
And my name...
is Sullivan Biddle.
She doesn't know.
She doesn't know...
...that-that I'm waiting for her.
That we will live again.
We will live again.
Oh, God.
Oh, my soul is tired.
Mulder, it's Scully.
Do you see any bunkers in the field?
My soul is tired.
I want to rest.
Ephesian's being taken down to his arraignment.
He and Melissa are going to be released soon.
Dana, if, um...
early in the four years we've been working together...
an event occurred that suggested
or somebody told you that...
we'd been friends together
in other lifetimes-- always--
wouldn't it have changed some of the ways we looked at one other?
Even if I knew for certain,
I wouldn't change a day.
Well, maybe that Flukeman thing.
I could have lived without that just fine.
We have come together in this life,
this time,
only to meet in passing.
It is so heartbreaking to wait.
I miss you.
I don't believe in it.
Why?
Those tapes are saying
that we chose the lives we live
before we're born, and who we live with.
It's a nice idea.
It's a beautiful idea.
I want to believe.
And if I knew it were true, I'd want to start over.
I'd want to end this pointless life.
Sarah...
if it were true,
no life would be pointless.
Melissa...
...it's time to leave.
All right, let's go, y'all.
I've reported to investigators on site
about the possible existence of other bunkers.
The field is not the property of the Seven Stars,
so the BATF is continuing to search.
Yay! They're home!
Agent Mulder, the attorney general is furious as is.
There's no way we're going to get a go ahead
for a second move on the compound.
Ephesian preaches and his followers believe
the FBI and the ATF are the Devil's army--
prophesied in Revelations 12:17--
to make war on "the seed which keep the commandments of God
and the testimony of Jesus Christ."
Revelations tells of Christian faith defeating that army.
You're saying he'll attack the ATF agents
searching for the bunkers,
believing it's prophesied he'll win?
I would be saying that if I thought he believed
in Revelations in its entirety, but he hid the weapons.
Ephesian knew that he couldn't defeat us.
If he doesn't believe that he can defeat the Devil's army,
he may think that by denying himself
and his followers to the Devil--
by denying himself, you understand?--
he will achieve for them the reward of "life forevermore"
and our worst fears will be realized.
All members to worship.
The Lord shall preserve you from all your evil.
He shall preserve your soul.
All members to worship.
The Lord shall preserve you from all your evil.
He shall preserve your soul.
Marvel not, my brethren, that the world hate you.
We know we've passed from death unto life
because we love the brethren.
No, I will not
remove our people; we're close to finding the weapons.
All I want is a cooling-off period.
Ephesian's gathered all the temple members
in the worship hall.
Parabolic mic we have aimed at the compound
just picked this up.
Marvel not, my brethren,
that the world hate you.
We know we've passed from death unto life
because we love the brethren.
Hereby perceive we the love of God
because he laid down his life for us.
Temple began running an interference frequency.
The first epistle of John, chapter three:
"He laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down
our lives for the brethren."
Okay, Mulder.
Blessed are they that do his commandments,
that they may have the right to the tree of life.
My little children,
let us not love in word, neither in tongue,
but in deed and truth,
and hereby we know that we are the truth.
They shall be stewards...
Man down! Man down!
Get him out of there!
Cease fire!
Hold your fire! Hold your fire!
Right above the vest.
Is there contact with the temple?
Well, call that "contact."
Needs to be
transported right away.
"...and enter in through the gates into the city.
"For without...
"are dogs...
"and sorcerers...
"and whoremongers...
"and murderers...
"idolaters.
"And whomsoever...
loveth and maketh a lie."
Mulder, no!
You're dead!
"Behold...
I am alive forevermore."
At times, I almost dream...
...I, too, have spent a life the sages' way
and tread once more familiar paths.
Perchance I perished
in an arrogant self-reliance an age ago,
and in that act, a prayer for one more chance
went up so earnest, so.
Instinct with better light let in by death
that life was blotted out not so completely...
but scattered wrecks enough of it
to remain dim memories...
as now, when seems once more...
the goal in sight again.