Ceremonial Violence: Understanding Columbine and Other School Rampage Shootings

by Jonathan Fast

Ceremonial Violence analyzes thirteen school "rampage" shootings―including the Columbine High School massacre―and explains, for the first time, why teenagers commit these tragic atrocities. These cases Spencer, 16, who after shooting at elementary school children for no apparent reason explained to a "I hate Mondays."Wayne Lo, 18, a brilliant Taiwanese student and violin prodigy, who embraced white supremacist rhetoric. One night he stalked the campus of Simon Rock's College with a semi-automatic rifle, picking victims at random.Evan Ramsey, 16, who went on a shooting rampage in Anchorage, alerting some 25 friends beforehand so they could observe the mayhem.Luke Woodham, 17, who claimed to have been controlled by demons when he killed his classmates.With his grasp of the elements of abnormal psychology, developmental psychology, sociology, and neurology that contribute to the homicidal mindset, Fast offers us a means of understanding and coming to terms with these shootings, and provides examples of what we should look for as early signs to prevent further tragedies.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Psychology, Crime, Social Issues, Social Commentary, Sociology

336 pages, Hardcover

First published September 4, 2008

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better than Brooks, but not as good as Cullen, IMO.
I have to admit that I held this guy to a higher standard, because he's an academic. That said, I think the book lacked a compelling thesis. The case histories are interesting, and very detailed. I learned more about the shootings other than Columbine, but reading the Harris / Klebold chapter didn't really teach me anything new, beyond that fact that Fast believes that Harris' unusual check structure may have made him a target for ridicule and been a compelling factor in his development.
Ceremonial violence is present in the intro, but no attempts is made to circle back to this thesis in the conclusion. Instead, Fast uses the final chapter to rally support for stricter gun control. Even though I agree with him in principle, the ending feels forced, and is not what one expects from a book purporting to talk about "ceremonial violence".
Maybe it's just a poorly chosen title. Maybe I expected too much. I did enjoy his exposition of why school shootings and gun violence in general has really only increased in the last half century and thinks it makes a nice counterpoint to claims of societal decay as causal factors. Other than that, nothing here was incredibly compelling for me.

[Kye Alfred Hillig · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book for the reasons that I believe the author enjoyed writing it, which is that he has a morbid curiosity about school shootings. The psychological spin that this book was supposed to be given seems like a weak sauce excuse to show information about a strange occurrence rather than some sort of detached explanation of them so they can be prevented.
The reason I gave this book four stars is because when Jonathan Fast describes the shootings they are very well written and that macabre joy that most humans get from details of horrific events is completely present. I hate to use that old hat about people not being able to help looking at car crashes but it is the same idea. It doesn't make you a bad person and I don't think that it makes Dr. Fast a bad person. I think that it only makes him one of an enormous crowd of humans who wonder about death and wish to stare directly at it without being taken by it. A book like this offers this opportunity. The book gives you a play by play complete with first person encounters with full descriptions of how the survivors felt if they were shot or what they were thinking and so on.
Another thing that I realized while reading this is that while I am normally a person who reserves judgment that I hate the kids who do this. They are whiny, spineless little assholes who wish to gain attention and fame through the misery of others. Most of these school shooters laughed or smiled the entire time they were killing and terrorizing and when everything got real (IE police returned fire) they began crying or would throw down their weapon and say things like, "I'm done, I don't want to die." I want to express that I think the police should go in a mow the fucker down instead of waiting outside for the killer to emerge as they do in most instances while all the while the killer keeps on killing.
I was also ashamed to learn that at the Columbine shootings the SWAP team didn't even enter the school till three hours after the shooting began and that was already two hours after the shooters had killed themselves. A truly pitiful response and that police force should be ashamed.

[Mary Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book offered a lot of details about school shooters' lives and the shootings themselves that I didn't know. For instance, I noticed that quite a few of the male shooters targeted a female student who had either rejected them or broken up with them. It was frustrating to read, over and over, how the school shooters all seemed to advertise widely what they were going to do, and how no one acted on the information.

I could only give the book 3 stars because Jonathan Fast seems to almost sympathize with the school shooters. The background of each shooter is reported like a Lifetime movie, the "oh poor misunderstood teenager" crap. I do not subscribe to the notion that a less than ideal childhood is in any way an excuse to senselessly massacre anyone. I ended up feeling like the chapters on specific shootings gave the shooters way too much attention, since they were all mostly the same: whiny, self-absorbed jackasses with raging senses of entitlement.

The anti-gun sentiment got really old too. After covering details of each shooters' personal life, Jonathan Fast seems to backtrack and fall back on anti-gun statements, as if that solves everything. After talking about teenage boys who had crates of guns in their bedrooms and somehow, their parents had no idea; who had slaughtered family pets for fun, and no one questioned it or made them pay any consequences; who threatened people and were merely asked to apologize for it; or other people buying guns or ammunition for them without question...does it really seem like the only issue here is a supposed lack of gun control? How about a lack of parenting, a lack of personal responsibility on the part of anyone who was told of the shooters' plans and did nothing? So much turning heads, so much doing absolutely nothing.

The media continues to give ample hype and attention to shooters, and over and over again, these teenager shooters admitted they were seeking that attention. Why no call for the media to stop glorifying them? Every picture, every quote, every interview is giving them fame for doing something spineless, cowardly, selfish, and senseless. Call it what it is.

There is far more going wrong than any set of gun control laws. I would have liked to see more exploration of that, than an easy cop-out of pretending the shooters are victims of anything, and that the only change that needs to take place is in gun legislation.

[SouthWestZippy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read two and a half chapters and that was enough of this book.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read. A little disappointed it didn't go more into the "psychological explanation" as the title suggested it would.

[Eva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ceremonial Violence by Jonathan Fast is a nonfiction novel that follows the author’s case study of school rampage shooters. The author has had a fascination with the current events and history of school shootings and acts of violence. He decided to study 13 cases that occurred from 1974 through 1999. However, for each case, these three pieces of the stories must be accurate: the shooter and victims had to be on the scene during the time of the shooting, the shooter had to be an adolescent, and there had to be at least than 2 victims (excluding the shooter if they commit suicide). Two of the cases were shootings performed by more than one person, which include the 1997 shooting done by Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden in Kentucky and the well known Columbine Shooting in 1999 in Colorado by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. The rest of the shootings were done alone by one adolescent. The shooters are studied in detail, and facts about them are shared such as their family life and their school life, mental health history, physical injuries, and other factors that could have driven the individuals to perform acts of violence. At the end of the book, there is a section that describes what has to be done in order to prevent these acts of violence from continuing such as gun control, school interventions, anti-bullying strategies, and more.

It is clear that Jonathan Fast had a motive with this novel and his studies, which was to inform people about the historical school shootings and to show that many of the shooters were average people before the violent events. He wants to show the readers the warning signs and the motivations that shooters had by explaining what took place leading up to the events.
Fast’s writing style was unique. Although this book was a case study, he placed many quotes, poems, and journal entries in his writing. These came directly from witnesses, victims, shooters, or sometimes family members and friends of the shooters. The insertion of these made the stories of the victims and shooters feel more real and the physical appearance of them made the reading easier and more appealing to the eye.
The thoughts that this book provokes are worth the read. There is information in this book beyond what is shown on television or social media about these historical events.
However, one thing this novel does not do is directly address the psychological aspect of why the shooters had certain motives. (Maybe I was too ambitious going into this novel, assuming my questions would be answered, but this was a let down for me when reading this.)

I would recommend this novel to anyone above the age of 13. This novel contains graphics and sensitive content that should not be read by young children until they are mature enough to handle this intense material. It is important for high school students, teachers, parents, and anyone who has loved ones in a school community to read this. This novel could help inform people about the historical events as well as how to detect troubled adolescents that are considering acts of violence and preventing these events from happening in the future.

[Ulzar Sadosh · Rating 2 out of 5]

The descriptions of shootings and histories of the shooters were quite interesting. Just as the theory of ceremonial violence.

Big downside when it comes to the theory is the author displays compartmentalization typical for psychologists - he writes about how the society abused many candidates until they were disabled and unable to function in it and treats it as business as usual, instead of coming to conclusion that they should have been paid adequate compensations for being subjected to such psychological liquidation.

The main problems of mass shooting is the society's entitlement to forgiveness and thoughtless fanatical hatred towards victims of psychological liquidation by the spoiled, privileged normies who weren't subjected to psychological liquidation.

It never gets addressed by psychologists and similar because they are spoiled and blinded by their privilege and want victims to suffer in poverty.

Which is an obvious problem with this book.

It advises anti-bullying program and non-violent schools, which is good, but again, people who had their health stolen in toxic schools and families and other institutions of the society are supposed to just accept that they got deprived of health, wealth, relationships, etc. over while others can live healthy lives.

[Overlook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ceremonial Violence analyzes the Columbine high school shooting and four other cases and explains for the first time why teenagers commit school rampage shootings. These cases include: Brenda Spencer, 16, who after shooting at elementary school children for no apparent reason explained to a reporter: “I hate Mondays.” Wayne Lo, 18, a brilliant Taiwanese student and violin prodigy who embraced white supremacist rhetoric. One night he stalked the campus of Simon’s Rock College with a semi-automatic rifle picking victims at random. Evan Ramsey, 16, who went on a shooting rampage in Anchorage, alerting some twenty-five friends beforehand so they could observe the mayhem. Luke Woodham, 17, who claimed to have been controlled by demons when he killed his classmates. In addition to these cases, Fast provides a detailed, clear narrative of the Columbine shootings. With his grasp of the elements of abnormal psychology, developmental psychology, sociology, and neurology that contribute to the homicidal mindset, Fast offers us a means of understanding and coming to terms with these tragedies.

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was interesting to read the recap of a handful of school shootings, especially the sixteen year old girl who shot shot up people in the school across the street while chatting with police on the phone. Fast's thesis is not very profound: kids that don't fit in (have a bad match with home, school, society) and especially those who are bullied may get depressed and suicidal. If they also want revenge, they may plan a suicidal ceremony. Having similarly motivated friends can lead to more extensive plans and a more detailed ceremony. Rather than providing useful insight about what can be done, Fast just tosses in gun control at the end though it has no connection with any of the book's slight insights.

Fast does mention, as an aside, that when authorities clean everything up and cover the bullet holes before the students get to come back may send the lesson that adults "can make anything go away like magic." A book on adult denial and dishonesty keeping reality away from children could be of great interest.

[Leslie Zampetti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fast's theory of ceremonial violence is interesting, well thought-out, and well-researched; however, the editing of this book is so poor, it became a significant distraction. Typos, grammatical errors, and similar editing issues are found in every chapter. True, they are a pet peeve of mine (SpellCheck has a lot to answer for), but annoying as such mistakes are in fiction, they're worse in a scholarly work such as Fast's.

That aside, this is an excellent examination of the phenomenon of school rampage shootings and should be read by parents and educators everywhere. Fast does a fine job of writing case studies to support his theory without glorifying the horrible details of these massacres or glibly skimming over them. Disturbing as these details are, Fast's studies provide not only a means to try to understand such violence but also a weighty argument for supporting gun control legislation.

[David Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ceremonial Violence: A Psychological Explanation of School Shootings by Jonathan Fast (PhD – Professor of Social Work at Yeshiva University) (The Overlook Press 2008) (371.782). This book was a bit ahead of its time. Among other things, it recites and presents much case study info on the early school shootings: Jonesboro, Arkansas (Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden), Pearl, Miss (Luke Woodham), Springfield, Oregon (Kip Kinkel), and Littleton, Colorado (Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris). Absolutely fascinating! My rating: 7/10, finished 2009.

[Tami Lowe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a bit disturbing, but I felt more of a relief knowing the common steps that these shooters took before they opened fire in their schools. I prefer to know rather than fear the unknown. Towards the back is a plan that has had success in putting bullies out on the table, so to speak. I considered pushing the school system here to implement this program, and heading it up...but pulled my bullied son out of their school instead. Priorities...

[Alexia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was well researched and clearly written. Time is taken to present multiple explanations, making the theories closer to what happens in actuality (that there is no one true cause for school shootings). My only criticism of the book comes when it is retelling the events surrounding the shootings, the way they are told makes it feel a little more like a collection of stories than evidence that supports a theory.

[Dona · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a decent book about rampage shooters, but I don't think it should have been titled Ceremonial Violence. I was expecting the author to parallel rituals from early and/or tribal cultures to present day school shootings--using archetypes and psychology. Instead, he provides detailed (and interesting) case histories of recent school shooters--although the case histories are missing what Langman's book provides, detailed psychological reports on the shooters.

[Andy Hickman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bullying has become a major life-crisis in most families as it creates tremendous anxiety. Its seriousness has become more pronounced in recent times with increases in child and youth suicide (labelled “bully-cide”) and long-term devastating effects. Many victims become revengeful leading to horrific retaliations.

Jonathan Fast, Ceremonial Violence: Understanding Columbine and Other School Rampage Shootings (New York: The Overlook Press, 2008), 13, 35.

[Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting stuff. does a good job at mapping out the before, during & after of each event, and delves into the psychological and environmental stressors that contribute to SR shootings. made some good points about bullying and gun control (if not anything all that revolutionary), but could've gone more in-depth into other preventative measures concerning children at risk of committing acts of extreme violence.

[Alisa Kester · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really great book if you want to begin to understand why someone would go on a rampage shooting. There's not a heck of a lot of new information here, but it's well presented, and thought-provoking. I appreciated that it was also empathic to the shooters themselves. These kids are not psychopaths or "born evil", regardless of what some would like to believe.

[Victoria-Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gives a detailed look into the minds of school shooters. It uses real occurances to help show the thought process. I liked this book and found it really informative but it also focused mostly if not completly on cases from the United States. More international examples would have been nice.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

It serves a purpose that hadn't been brought up until its existence and I haven't seen replicated since. It gives a good solid psychological analysis that may or may not be correct, as is any analysis. However, it does show a few arguments and brings up points about different cases that I haven't seen brought up elsewhere.

[Julie N · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating look at school shootings from a psychological perspective. My one complaint is that at times the author's perspective seemed a little skewed. I prefer that scholarly works stay unbiased.

[ette]

So far very, very disturbing. I found it at the public library, and it's a more academic (so far) study of school shootings. Maybe it's because the perpetrators and most of the victims are children, but this is more disturbing than books I've read about serial killers.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has the most detailed accounts of a variety of school shootings that I have ever seen. I wish the author would spend less time on his anti-gun diatribe and more time offering some real solutions.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been waiting for a book like this to come out for years. I couldn't put it down, and then I couldn't sleep.

[Daniel DeLappe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read but a bit technical in parts. Never really got deep into what brings this behavior about. There really is no one reason and no excuse.

[Jill Crosby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of details given about several differing school shooting cases, but not a lot of analysis.

[Laraine Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very readable, though the theory didn't seem to be fleshed out very well, though it's in the title.

[Colleen · Rating 1 out of 5]

An overview of a handful of school shootings without much analysis or depth. A "psychological explanation of school shootings" it is most definitely not.

[Norman Howe]

Science-Fiction