Jump to content

Heaven's Gate (religious group)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Pargreen (talk | contribs) at 14:38, 14 May 2021 (Morgans => Morgan's). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

For the 1980 film, see Heaven's Gate (film).
Heaven's Gate
TypeNew religious movement
ClassificationUFO religious
OrientationChristian millenarianism, New Age, Ufology
ScriptureBible
LeadersBonnie Nettles (1974-1985) Marshall Applewhite (1974–1997)
RegionUnited States
Headquarters
FounderMarshall Applewhite and
Bonnie Nettles
Origin1974
DefunctMarch 19–20, 1997 (Religious Movement)
Members41 (Pre-1997), 2 (Post-1997)
Other name(s)Human Individual Metamorphosis, Total Overcomers Anonymous
Official websitewww.heavensgate.com

Heaven's Gate was an American new religious movement, often described as a cult. It was founded in 1974 and led by Bonnie Nettles (1927–1985) and Marshall Applewhite (1931–1997), known within the movement as Ti and Do respectively.[1] Nettles and Applewhite first met in 1972, and went on a journey of spiritual discovery, identifying themselves as the two witnesses of Revelation, attracting a following of several hundred people in the mid 1970s. In 1976, the group stopped recruiting and instituted a monastic lifestyle. Scholars have described the theology of Heaven's Gate as a mixture of Christian millenarianism, New Age and Ufology, and as such it has been characterised as a UFO religion. The central belief of the group was that followers could transform themselves into immortal extraterrestrial beings by rejecting their human nature, and they would ascend to heaven, referred to as the "Next Level" or "The Evolutionary Level Above Human". The death of Nettles to cancer in 1985 challenged the groups views on ascension, where they originally believed that they would ascend to heaven while alive aboard a UFO, they later came to believe that the body was merely a "container" or "vehicle" for the soul, and that their consciousness would be transferred to new "Next Level bodies" upon death.

On March 26, 1997, deputies of the San Diego County Sheriff's Department discovered the bodies of the 39 active members of the group, including that of Applewhite, in a house in the San Diego suburb of Rancho Santa Fe. They had participated in a mass suicide, a coordinated series of ritual suicides, coinciding with the closest approach of the Comet Hale–Bopp.[2][3] Just before the mass suicide, the group's website was updated with the message: 'Hale–Bopp brings closure to Heaven's Gate ...our 22 years of classroom here on planet Earth is finally coming to conclusion — 'graduation' from the Human Evolutionary Level. We are happily prepared to leave 'this world' and go with Ti's crew.'[4]

The name "Heaven's Gate" was only used for the final few years of the group's existence, and they had previously been known under the names Human Individual Metamorphosis and Total Overcomers Anonymous.

History

The son of a Presbyterian minister and a former soldier, Marshall Applewhite began his foray into biblical prophecy in the early 1970s. After being fired from the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas over an alleged relationship with one of his male students, he met Bonnie Nettles, a 44-year-old married nurse with an interest in theosophy and biblical prophecy, in March 1972.[5] The circumstances of their meeting are disputed. According to Applewhite's writings, the two met in a hospital where she worked while he was visiting a sick friend there. It has been rumored that it was a psychiatric hospital, but Nettles was substituting for another nurse working with premature babies in the nursery.[6] Applewhite later recalled that he felt as though he had known Nettles for a long time and concluded that they had met in a past life.[7] She told him their meeting had been foretold to her by extraterrestrials, persuading him that he had a divine assignment.[8][9]

Applewhite and Nettles pondered the life of St. Francis of Assisi and read works by authors including Helena Blavatsky, R. D. Laing, and Richard Bach.[10][incomplete short citation][11] They kept a King James Bible with them and studied several passages from the New Testament, focusing on teachings about Christology, asceticism, and eschatology.[12] Applewhite also read science fiction, including works by Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke.[13] By June 19, Applewhite and Nettles's beliefs had solidified into a basic outline.[14] They concluded that they had been chosen to fulfill biblical prophecies, and that they had been given higher-level minds than other people.[15] They wrote a pamphlet that described Jesus' reincarnation as a Texan, a thinly veiled reference to Applewhite.[16] Furthermore, they concluded that they were the two witnesses described in the Book of Revelation[17] and occasionally visited churches or other spiritual groups to speak of their identities,[18] often referring to themselves as "The Two", or "The UFO Two".[11][19] They believed they would be killed and then restored to life and, in view of others, transported onto a spaceship. This event, which they referred to as "the Demonstration", was to prove their claims.[16] To their dismay, these ideas were poorly received by existing religious communities.[20]

The Two would gain their first follower, Sharon Morgan, in May 1974, abandoning her children to join them. A month later Sharon left The Two and returned to her family. Nettles and Applewhite were arrested and charged with credit card fraud for using Morgan's cards, despite the fact that she had consented to their use. The charges were later dropped. However a routine check brought up that Applewhite had stolen a rental car from St. Louis 9 months earlier, which he was still in possession of. Applewhite subsequently spent six months in jail primarily in Missouri, and was released in early 1975, subsequently rejoining Nettles.[20]

Eventually, Applewhite and Nettles resolved to contact extraterrestrials, and they sought like-minded followers. They published advertisements for meetings, where they recruited disciples, whom they called "the crew".[21] At the events, they purported to represent beings from another planet, the Next Level, who sought participants for an experiment. They stated that those who agreed to take part in the experiment would be brought to a higher evolutionary level.[22] In April 1975, during a meeting with a metaphysical group of eighty people led by Clarence Klug in Joan Culpepper's Studio City, Los Angeles home, they shared their "simultaneous" revelation that they had been told they were the two witnesses written into the Bible's story of the end time.[23] While accounts of the meeting differ, all describe it as momentous and that agree that Applewhite and Nettles presented themselves as charismatic leaders with an important spiritual message. Between 23 and 27 individuals decided to join the group as a result of the meeting.[24]

Later, in September 1975, Applewhite and Nettles preached at a motel hall in Waldport, Oregon. After selling all "worldly" possessions and saying farewell to loved ones, around 20 people vanished from the hotel and from the public eye and joined the group.[5] That night on the CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite reported on the disappearances, in one of the first national reports on the developing religious group: "A score of persons ... have disappeared. It's a mystery whether they've been taken on a so-called trip to eternity—or simply been taken."[23] In reality, Applewhite and Nettles had arranged for the group to go underground. From that point, "Do and Ti" (pronounced "doe and tee"), as the two now called themselves, led the nearly one-hundred-member crew across the country, sleeping in tents and sleeping bags and begging in the streets. Evading detection by the authorities and media enabled the group to focus on Do and Ti's doctrine of helping members of the crew achieve a "higher evolutionary level" above human, which they claimed to have already reached.[23]

Applewhite and Nettles used a variety of aliases over the years, notably "Bo and Peep" and "Do and Ti". The group also had a variety of names—prior to the adoption of the name Heaven's Gate (and at the time Vallée studied the group), it was known as Human Individual Metamorphosis (HIM). The group re-invented and renamed itself several times and had a variety of recruitment methods.[25][26] Applewhite believed he was directly related to Jesus, meaning he was an "Evolutionary Kingdom Level Above Human".

Indeed, Applewhite's writings, which combined aspects of Millennialism, Gnosticism, and science fiction, suggest he believed himself to be Jesus' successor and the "Present Representative" of Christ on Earth.[23] Do and Ti taught during the religious movement's early beginnings that Do's bodily "vehicle" was inhabited by the same alien spirit which belonged to Jesus; likewise, Ti (Nettles) was presented as God the Father.[23]

The crew used numerous methods of recruitment as they toured the United States in destitution, proclaiming the gospel of higher level metamorphosis, the deceit of humans by false-god spirits, envelopment with sunlight for meditative healing, and the divinity of the "UFO Two".[23]

In April 1976, the group stopped recruiting and became reclusive, and instituted a rigid set of behavioural guidelines, including banning sexual activity and the use of drugs. Applewhite and Nettles also solidified that they represented the sole temporal and religious authority of the group. Benjamin Zeller described the movement as having transformed "from a loosely organised social group to a centralized religious movement comparable to a roving monastery".[27]

Some sociologists agree that the popular movement of alternative religious experience and individualism found in collective spiritual experiences during that period helped contribute to the growth of the new religious movement. "Sheilaism", as it became known, was a way for people to merge their diverse religious backgrounds and coalesce around a shared, generalized faith, which followers of new religious sects like Applewhite's crew found a very appetizing alternative to traditional dogmas in Judaism, Catholicism and evangelical Christianity. Many of Applewhite and Nettle's crew hailed from these very diverse backgrounds; most of them are described by researchers as having been "longtime truth-seekers", or spiritual hippies who had long since believed in attempting to "find themselves" through spiritual means, combining faiths in a sort of cultural milieu well into the mid-1980s.[28] However, remarkably, many of those same researchers note that not all of Applewhite's crew were hippies recruited from alternative religious backgrounds—in fact, one such recruit early on was John Craig, a respected Republican and ranch owner who came close to winning a 1970 Colorado House of Representatives race, who joined the group in 1975.[29][30] As recruit numbers grew in its pre-Internet days, the clan of "UFO followers" all seemed to have in common a need for communal belonging in an alternative path to higher existence without the constraints of institutionalized faith.

Identifying themselves using the business name "Higher Source", and using their website to proselytize and recruit followers beginning in the early 1990s. Rumors began spreading throughout the group in the following years that the upcoming Comet Hale–Bopp housed the secret to their ultimate salvation and ascent into the kingdom of heaven.[31]

Contemporary media coverage

File:HeavensGateRecruitmentMeetingFlyer.jpg
Flyer for a Heaven's Gate recruitment meeting, Berkeley, California, May, 1994

Heaven's Gate received coverage in Jacques Vallée's book Messengers of Deception (1979), in which Vallée described an unusual public meeting organized by the group. Vallée frequently expressed concerns within the book about contactee groups' authoritarian political and religious outlooks, and Heaven's Gate did not escape criticism.[32] Known to the mainstream media (though largely ignored through the 1980s and 1990s), Heaven's Gate was better known in UFO circles, as well as through a series of academic studies by sociologist Robert Balch.

In January 1994, the LA Weekly ran an article on the group, then known as "The Total Overcomers".[33] Richard Ford, who would later play a key role in the 1997 group suicide, discovered Heaven's Gate through this article and eventually joined them, renaming himself Rio DiAngelo.[23]

Coast to Coast AM host Art Bell featured the theory of the "companion object" in the shadow of Hale–Bopp on several programs, as early as November 1996; speculation has been raised as to whether his programs on the subject contributed to Heaven's Gate's group suicide months later, which Knowledge Fight host Dan Friesen blames more on Courtney Brown rather than Bell.[34][35]

Louis Theroux contacted the Heaven's Gate group while making a program for his BBC2 documentary series, Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends, in early March 1997. In response to his e-mail, Theroux was told that Heaven's Gate could not take part in the documentary because "at the present time a project like this would be an interference with what we must focus on."[36]

Mass suicide

In October 1996,[37] the group began renting a large home which they called "The Monastery", a 9,200 square feet (850 m2) mansion located near 18341 Colina Norte (later changed to Paseo Victoria) in Rancho Santa Fe, California. They paid $7,000 per month, in cash.[38] In the same month, the group purchased alien abduction insurance that would cover up to fifty members and would pay out $1 million per person (the policy covered abduction, impregnation, or death by aliens).[39] Prior to this, in June 1995 they had purchased land near Manzano, New Mexico and had begun work creating a compound out of rubber tyres and concrete, but had left abruptly in April 1996.[40]

On March 19–20, 1997, Marshall Applewhite taped himself in Do's Final Exit, speaking of mass suicide and "the only way to evacuate this Earth". After asserting that a spacecraft was trailing Comet Hale–Bopp and that this event would represent the "closure to Heaven's Gate", Applewhite persuaded 38 followers to prepare for ritual suicide so their souls could board the supposed craft. Applewhite believed that after their deaths an unidentified flying object (UFO) would take their souls to another "level of existence above human", which he described as being both physical and spiritual. Their preparations included each member's videotaping a farewell message.

To kill themselves, members took phenobarbital mixed with apple sauce or pudding and washed it down with vodka. Additionally, they secured plastic bags around their heads after ingesting the mix to induce asphyxiation. All 39 were dressed in identical black shirts and sweat pants, brand new black-and-white Nike Decades athletic shoes, and armband patches reading "Heaven's Gate Away Team" (one of many instances of the group's use of the nomenclature of the fictional universe of Star Trek). Each member had on their person a five-dollar bill and three quarters in their pockets.[41] According to former members, this was standard for members leaving the home for jobs and "a humorous way to tell us they all had left the planet permanently"; the five-dollar bill was for covering the cost of vagrancy laws and the quarters were for calling home from pay phones.[42] Once a member was dead, a living member would arrange the body by removing the plastic bag from the person's head, followed by posing the body so that it lay neatly in its own bed, with faces and torsos covered by a square purple cloth for privacy. In an interview with Harry Robinson, the two surviving members said that the identical clothing was used as a uniform for the mass suicide to represent unity, whilst the Nike Decades were chosen because the group "got a good deal on the shoes".[43] Applewhite was also a fan of Nikes "and therefore everyone was expected to wear and like Nikes" within the group. Heaven's Gate also had a saying within the group, 'Just Do it,' using Nike's slogan. They pronounced Do as Doe, to reflect Applewhite's nickname.[44]

The 39 adherents, 21 women and 18 men between the ages of 26 and 72, are believed to have died in three groups over three successive days, with remaining participants cleaning up after each prior group's deaths.[45] The suicides occurred in groups of fifteen, fifteen, and nine, between approximately March 22 and March 26.[45][46][47][48][49][50][51][excessive citations] Among the dead was Thomas Nichols, brother of the actress Nichelle Nichols, who is best known for her role as Uhura in the original television series of Star Trek.[52] Leader Applewhite was the third to last member to die; two people remained after him and were the only ones who would be found with bags over their heads and not having purple cloths covering their top halves. Before the last of the suicides, similar sets of packages were sent to numerous Heaven's Gate affiliated (or formerly affiliated) individuals,[45] and at least one media outlet, the BBC department responsible for Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends, for which Heaven's Gate had earlier declined participation.

Among those in the list of recipients was Rio DiAngelo. The package DiAngelo received on the evening of March 25,[53] as other packages sent had,[45] contained two VHS videotapes, one with Do's Final Exit, and the other with the "farewell messages" of group followers.[53] It also contained a letter, stating that among other things, "we have exited our vehicles, just as we entered them."[54] Upon informing his boss of the contents of the packages, DiAngelo received a ride from him from Los Angeles to the Heaven's Gate home in Rancho Santa Fe so he could verify the letter. DiAngelo found a back door intentionally left unlocked to allow access,[54] and used a video camera to record what he found. After leaving the house, DiAngelo's boss, who had waited outside, encouraged him to make calls to authorities alerting them to his discovery.[53]

The San Diego County Sheriff's Department received an anonymous tip through the 911 system at 3:15 p.m. on March 26,[37] suggesting they "check on the welfare of the residents".[55] Days after the suicides, this caller was revealed to be DiAngelo.[53][54]

Caller: Yes, I need to report an anonymous tip, who do I talk to?

Sherriff's Department: Okay, this is regarding what?

Caller: This is regarding a mass suicide, and I can give you the address ...

— San Diego County 911 call, March 26, 1997, 3:15 p.m. PST[54]

The single deputy who first responded to the call entered the home through a side door,[55] saw ten bodies, and was nearly overcome by a "pungent odor".[37] (The bodies were already decomposing in the hot California spring.)[37] After a cursory search by two deputies found no one alive, both retreated until a search warrant could be procured.[55] All 39 bodies were ultimately cremated.

Aftermath

The Heaven's Gate event was widely publicized in the media as an example of mass suicide.[56] When news broke of the suicides and their relation to Comet Hale–Bopp, the co-discoverer of the comet, Alan Hale, was drawn into the story. Hale's phone "never stopped ringing the entire day". He did not respond until the next day, when he spoke on the subject at a press conference, but only after researching the details of the incident.[57] Speaking at the Second World Skeptics Congress in Heidelberg, Germany on July 24, 1998:[58]

Dr. Hale discussed the scientific significance and popular lore of comets and gave a personal account of his discovery. He then lambasted the combination of scientific illiteracy, willful delusions, a radio talk show's deception about an imaginary spacecraft following the comet, and a cult's bizarre yearnings for ascending to another level of existence that led to the Heaven's Gate mass suicides.[59]

Hale said that well before Heaven's Gate, he had told a colleague:

'We are probably going to have some suicides as a result of this comet.' The sad part is that I was really not surprised. Comets are lovely objects, but they don't have apocalyptic significance. We must use our minds, our reason.[59]

News of the 39 deaths in Rancho Santa Fe motivated the copycat suicide of a 58-year-old man living near Marysville, California.[60] The man left a note dated March 27, which said, "I'm going on the spaceship with Hale–Bopp to be with those who have gone before me," and imitated some of the details of the Heaven's Gate suicides as they had been reported in the media up to that point. The man was found dead by a friend on March 31, and had no known connection with Heaven's Gate.[61]

At least three former members of Heaven's Gate ultimately died by suicide themselves in the months after the mass suicide event. On May 6, 1997, Wayne Cooke and Chuck Humphrey attempted suicide in a hotel in a manner similar to that used by the group. Cooke died and Humphrey survived this attempt.[62] Another former member, James Pirkey Jr., died by suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot wound on May 11. Humphrey, who had survived his first suicide attempt, ultimately killed himself in Arizona in February 1998.[62][63]

Two former members, Marc and Sarah King of Phoenix, Arizona, operating as the TELAH Foundation, are believed to maintain the group's website.[64]

Belief system

Scholars disagree over whether the theology of Heaven's Gate is fundamentally either New Age or Christian in nature. Benjamin Zeller has argued that the theology of Heaven's Gate was primarily rooted in Evangelicalism, but with New Age elements, and a hermeneutic interpretation of the Bible read through the lens of extraterrestrial contact.[65]

Initially the group had been told that they would be biologically and chemically transformed into extraterrestrial beings and would be transported with their bodies aboard a spacecraft that would come to Earth and take the crew to heaven, referred to as the "Next Level". When Bonnie Lou Nettles (Ti) died of cancer in 1985, it confounded the group's doctrine because Nettles was allegedly chosen by the next level to be a messenger on Earth, yet her body died instead of leaving physically to outer space. The belief system was then revised to include the leaving of consciousness from the body, as equivalent to leaving the Earth in a spacecraft.[66]

The group declared that they were against suicide, as they defined "suicide" in their own context to mean "to turn against the Next Level when it is being offered" and believed their "human" bodies were only "vehicles" meant to help them on their journey. Suicide, therefore, would be not allowing their consciousness to leave their human bodies to join the next level; remaining alive instead of participating in the group suicide was considered suicide of their consciousness. In conversation, when referring to a person or a person's body, they routinely used the word "vehicle".[67]

The members of the group gave themselves three letter names with the suffix -ody that they adopted in lieu of their original given names, which defines "children of the Next Level". This is mentioned in Applewhite's final video, Do's Final Exit, filmed March 19–20, 1997, just days prior to the suicides.

They believed that, "to be eligible for membership in the Next Level, humans would have to shed every attachment to the planet". This meant all members had to give up all human-like characteristics, such as their family, friends, sexuality, individuality, jobs, money, and possessions.[68]

"The Evolutionary Level Above Human" (TELAH) was as a "physical, corporeal place",[69] another world in our universe,[70] where residents live in pure bliss and nourish themselves by absorbing pure sunlight.[71] At the next level, beings do not engage in sexual intercourse, eating or dying, the things that make us "mammalian" here.[72] Heaven's Gate believed that what the Bible calls God is actually a highly developed Extraterrestrial.[73]

Members of Heaven's Gate believed that evil space aliens—called Luciferians—falsely represented themselves to Earthlings as "God" and conspired to keep humans from developing.[74] Technically advanced humanoids, these aliens have spacecraft, space-time travel, telepathy, and increased longevity.[74] They use holograms to fake miracles.[72] Carnal beings with gender, they stopped training to achieve the Kingdom of God thousands of years ago.[74] Heaven's Gate believed that all existing religions on Earth had been corrupted by these malevolent aliens.[75]

Although these basic beliefs of the group stayed generally consistent over the years, "the details of their ideology were flexible enough to undergo modification over time."[76] There are examples of the group's adding to or slightly changing their beliefs, such as: modifying the way one can enter the Next Level, changing the way they described themselves, placing more importance on the idea of Satan, and adding several other New Age concepts. One of these concepts was the belief of extraterrestrial walk-ins; when the group began, "Applewhite and Nettles taught their followers that they were extraterrestrial beings. However, after the notion of walk-ins became popular within the New Age subculture, the Two changed their tune and began describing themselves as extraterrestrial walk-ins."[76] The idea of walk-ins is very similar to the concept of being possessed by spirits. A walk-in can be defined as "an entity who occupies a body that has been vacated by its original soul". Heaven's Gate came to believe an extraterrestrial walk-in is "a walk-in that is supposedly from another planet".[77]

The concept of walk-ins aided Applewhite and Nettles in personally starting from what they considered to be clean slates. In this so-called clean slate, they were no longer considered by members of this Heaven's Gate group to be the people they had been prior to the start of the group, but had taken on a new life; this concept gave them a way to "erase their human personal histories as the histories of souls who formerly occupied the bodies of Applewhite and Nettles".[77] Over time Applewhite also revised his identity in the group to encourage the belief that the "walk in" that was inhabiting his body was the same that had done so to Jesus 2,000 years ago. Similar to Nestorianism this belief stated that the personage of Jesus and the spirit of Jesus were separable. This meant that Jesus was simply the name of the body of an ordinary man that held no sacred properties that was taken over by an incorporeal sacred entity to deliver "next level" information.

Another New Age belief Applewhite and Nettles adopted was the ancient astronaut hypothesis. The term "ancient astronauts" is used to refer to various forms of the concept that extraterrestrials visited Earth in the distant past.[76] Applewhite and Nettles took part of this concept and taught it as the belief that "aliens planted the seeds of current humanity millions of years ago, and have to come to reap the harvest of their work in the form of spiritually evolved individuals who will join the ranks of flying saucer crews. Only a select few members of humanity will be chosen to advance to this transhuman state. The rest will be left to wallow in the spiritually poisoned atmosphere of a corrupt world."[78] Only the individuals who chose to join Heaven's Gate, follow Applewhite and Nettle's belief system, and make the sacrifices required by membership would be allowed to escape human suffering.

Techniques to enter the next level

According to Heaven's Gate, once the individual has perfected himself through the "process", there were four methods to enter or "graduate" to the next level:[79]

  1. Physical pickup onto a TELAH spacecraft and transfer to a next level body aboard that craft. In this version, what Professor Zeller calls a "UFO" version of the "Rapture", an alien spacecraft would descend to Earth and collect Applewhite, Nettles, and their followers, and their human bodies would be transformed through biological and chemical processes to perfected beings.[80] This and other UFO-related beliefs held by the group have led some observers to characterize the group as a type of UFO religion.
  2. Natural death, accidental death, or death from random violence. Here, the "graduating soul" leaves the human container for a perfected next-level body.[81]
  3. Outside persecution that leads to death. After the deaths of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, and the events involving Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge, Applewhite was afraid the American government would murder the members of Heaven's Gate.[82]
  4. Willful exit from the body in a dignified manner. Near the end, Applewhite had a revelation that they might have to abandon their human bodies and achieve the next level as Jesus had done.[81] This occurred on March 22 and 23 when 39 members died by suicide and "graduated".[83]

Structure

In a group open only to adults over the age of 18,[84] members gave up their possessions and lived a highly ascetic life devoid of many indulgences. The group was tightly knit and everything was communally shared. In public, each member of the group always carried only a five-dollar bill and one roll of quarters.[85] Eight of the male members of the group, including Applewhite, voluntarily underwent castration as an extreme means of maintaining the ascetic lifestyle.[86] The group initially attempted castration by having one of the members, a former nurse, perform the castration, but this initial attempt was very unsuccessful, almost resulted in the patient's death, and caused at least one member to leave Heaven's Gate. Every castration that followed this initial one was done in a hospital.[87]

The group earned revenues by offering professional website development for paying clients under the business name Higher Source.[88]

The cultural theorist Paul Virilio has described the group as a cybersect, owing to its heavy reliance on computer mediated communication as a mode of communication prior to its collective suicide.[89] As of April 2021, the group's website is still online, 24 years after the mass suicide.[90]

Television and film

In 1979 Gary Sherman filmed the television movie Mysterious Two based on the exploits of Applewhite and Nettles, then relatively unknown, though it was not aired until 1982.[91]

In its first live episode following the mass suicide, Saturday Night Live aired a sketch where the cult members made it to space. It was followed by a commercial parody for Keds, featuring the tagline 'worn by level-headed Christians' as well as footage of the Nike-clad corpses of the Heaven's Gate members.[92][93] In the time since, Heaven's Gate has been an inspiration for many fictional cults and mass suicide events.

In television, the cult and suicides were referenced in Family Guy episode "Chitty Chitty Death Bang",[94] CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode "Shooting Stars"[95], an episode of Wallander,[96] in Cowboy Bebop episode "Brain Scratch",[97] and in Absolutely Fabulous episode "Small Opening".[98] In 2013, the comedy series Key & Peele included a sketch titled "Cult Mass Suicide" (Season 3, Episode 12) that had many similarities to the Heaven's Gate tragedy.[99][better source needed]

In film, references include Dude, Where's My Car?, where the main characters discover a UFO cult based on Heaven's Gate.[100][101] Heaven's Gate is further referenced in Deadpool[102] and in The Lodge, the latter featuring visual nods to the purple shrouds covering the victims' bodies.[103]

In 2020, a documentary series entitled Heaven’s Gate: The Cult of Cults was released.[104]

Music

  • The English progressive rock band Porcupine Tree referenced the cult in their song "Last Chance to Evacuate Planet Earth Before It Is Recycled" (which samples a speech from Applewhite), from their album Lightbulb Sun (2000).[105]
  • The music video for drum and bass band Pendulum's single "Propane Nightmares" features a cult that heavily resembles Heaven's Gate.[106]
  • In 2012, Captain Murphy's mixtape and video album Duality featured samples and video footage from the Heaven's Gate initiation recordings.[107]
  • The song "1997", by American indie pop band Saint Motel and included on their album Voyeur (2012), is based on the Heaven's Gate sect.[108] American hip-hop artist Aesop Rock referenced quotes from members of Heaven's Gate in the song "Hotdogs" from the album of the same name.
  • "Do, Re, and Me", by American folk punk band AJJ and included on their 2014 album Christmas Island, along with the song's music video, heavily reference Heaven's Gate.[109] Since that same year, Techno musician Joel Dunn has performed music under the stage name Marshall Applewhite.[110]
  • The album The Demonstration (2017) by the American musical project Drab Majesty was heavily inspired by Heaven's Gate, making several references to the sect throughout.[111][112]
  • The album Eternal Atake (2020), American rapper Lil Uzi Vert, originally featured an album cover recreating the sect's logo.[113] However, the album cover was changed after the remaining members of Heaven's Gate threatened him with copyright infringement litigation.[114]
  • Bay Area thrash metal band Testament released their song "Children of the Next Level" on their album Titans of Creation; the song is about the cult, including references to Hale-Bopp, the mass suicide, and themes of escaping a broken world for a higher outer plane.
  • The Exodus Cult in the Metalocalypse episode PR Pickles is a parody of the Heaven's Gate cult and the Nile's comet is a parody of the Comet Hale-Bopp. Nathan Explosion sings about the cult's suicide in the Comet song though the comet is knocked off course killing the PR lady and random bystanders.[115]

Video games

Several video games have featured fictional religious cults referencing Heaven's Gate. Far Cry 5 featured a fictional doomsday cult called Eden's Gate whose name was inspired by Heaven's Gate,[116] while Grand Theft Auto V featured a fictional cult called the Altruist Cult, whose in-game website closely resembles that of Heaven's Gate.[117][better source needed]

Books

The novels Jupiter's Bones (1998) by Faye Kellerman and Victims (2003) by Travis Jeppesen are focused on cults based on Heaven's Gate.[118][119]

Nike Decades

Infamy caused by the mass suicides, limited availability and its sudden and unceremonious discontinuation have been cited as reasons for the high resale value of Nike Decades.[120][121]

See also

References

  1. ^ Hexham, Irving; Poewe, Karla (7 May 1997). "UFO Religion—Making Sense of the Heaven's Gate Suicides". Christian Century. pp. 439–40. Retrieved 2007-10-06.
  2. ^ "Mass suicide involved sedatives, vodka and careful planning". CNN. Retrieved 2010-05-04.
  3. ^ Ayres, B. Drummond, Jr. (March 29, 1997). "Families Learning of 39 Cultists Who Died Willingly". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-11-09. According to material the group posted on its Internet site, the timing of the suicides were probably related to the arrival of the Hale–Bopp comet, which members seemed to regard as a cosmic emissary beckoning them to another world.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ "Heaven's Gate". Retrieved 2018-07-31.
  5. ^ a b Goldwag 2009, p. 77.
  6. ^ Lewis 2003, p. 111.
  7. ^ Lalich 2004, pp. 44, 48.
  8. ^ Balch & Taylor 2002, p. 210.
  9. ^ Lalich 2004, p. 43.
  10. ^ Zeller 2006, p. 78; Bearak 1997.
  11. ^ a b Zeller, Prophets and Protons 2010, p. 123.
  12. ^ Zeller, "Extraterrestrial Biblical Hermeneutics" 2010, pp. 42–43.
  13. ^ Lifton 2000, p. 306.
  14. ^ Zeller, "Extraterrestrial Biblical Hermeneutics" 2010, p. 40.
  15. ^ Chryssides 2005, p. 355.
  16. ^ a b Balch & Taylor 2002, p. 211.
  17. ^ Zeller 2014b, p. 108.
  18. ^ Chryssides 2005, p. 356; Zeller, "Extraterrestrial Biblical Hermeneutics" 2010, p. 40.
  19. ^ Urban 2000, p. 276.
  20. ^ a b Bearak 1997.
  21. ^ Chryssides 2005, p. 356.
  22. ^ Goerman 2011, p. 60; Chryssides 2005, p. 357.
  23. ^ a b c d e f g Bearman, Joshuah (21 March 2007). "Heaven's Gate: The Sequel". LA Weekly. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  24. ^ Zeller 2014 p.34
  25. ^ Ryan J. Cook, Heaven's Gate Archived 2009-01-29 at the Wayback Machine, webpage retrieved 2008-10-10.
  26. ^ Mizrach, Steven. "The Facts about Heaven's Gate". Archived from the original on 2008-05-17. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
  27. ^ Zeller 2014. pp.41-42
  28. ^ Zeller 2014a, pp. 59–65.
  29. ^ Zeller 2014a, pp. 65–66.
  30. ^ Brooke, James (1997-03-31). "For Cowboy in Cult, Long Ride Into Sunset". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-04-26.
  31. ^ "The Online Legacy of a Suicide Cult and the Webmasters Who Stayed Behind". Gizmodo.com. 17 September 2014. Retrieved 2016-09-30.
  32. ^ Vallee, Jacques (1979). Messengers of Deception: UFO Contacts and Cults. Ronin.
  33. ^ Gardetta, Dave (21 January 1994). "They Walk Among Us". LA Weekly. Archived from the original on 2007-03-28. Retrieved 2007-08-23.
  34. ^ Genoni, Jr., Thomas. "Art Bell, Heaven's Gate, and Journalistic Integrity". Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Retrieved 3 September 2015.
  35. ^ Dan Friesen; Jordan Holmes (January 30, 2018). "Project Camelot's War on Heaven". Knowledge Fight. Retrieved January 12, 2021.
  36. ^ Louis Theroux. Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends: UFO. Veoh.
  37. ^ a b c d "GROUP: 39 Found Dead in Apparent Suicide". The Los Angeles Times. 1997-03-27. Retrieved 2019-06-01 – via Newspapers.com.
  38. ^ "The Marker We've Been ... Waiting For", by Elizabeth Gleick, Cathy Booth and Pmes Willwerth (Rancho Santa Fe); Nancy Harbert (Albuquerque); Rachele Kanigal (Oakland) and Richard N. Ostling and Noah Robischon (New York). Time. Monday, April 7, 1997.
  39. ^ Edith Lederer, "Alien Abduction Insurance Cancelled!", Associated Press, 2 April 1997, Retrieved March 12, 2008
  40. ^ "Heaven's Gate left mounds of old tires and a few friends in New Mexico". AP NEWS. Retrieved 2021-05-02.
  41. ^ Meredith, Nikki. The Manson Women and Me: Monsters, Morality, and Murder. Citadel Press. ISBN 978-0-8065-3860-0. Retrieved 11 February 2021.
  42. ^ "Heaven's Gate Cult Still Alive and Checking Emails". Monster Children. 2015-09-17. Retrieved 2021-04-11.
  43. ^ Robinson, Harry (20 January 2020). "Going to Heaven on a UFO—an interview with Heaven's Gate cult members 22 years on". AllOutAttack.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  44. ^ "How Heaven's Gate's Choice Of Nikes For Mass Suicide Became A Cultural Touchstone". Oxygen Official Site. 2020-12-10. Retrieved 2020-12-10.
  45. ^ a b c d Ramsland, Katherine. "Death Mansion". All about Heaven's Gate cult. CourtTV Crime Library. Archived from the original on 2006-12-11. Retrieved September 20, 2006. On Saturday ... The first team of 15 ... Sunday, the next team of fifteen followed. Finally there were seven on Monday, and then only two.
  46. ^ Thomas, Evan (April 6, 1997). "The Next Level". Newsweek. Retrieved June 3, 2019. March 23: The first group of 15 swallow applesauce ... March 24: Fifteen more die ... March 25: The remaining cultists kill themselves
  47. ^ Coleman, Loren (2004). The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines. Simon and Schuster. p. 80. ISBN 978-1-4165-0554-9. On March 22, 1997, thirty-nine members ... consumed phenobarbital ... all dying
  48. ^ Hux, Clete. "Heaven's Gate Timeline". www.watchman.org. Retrieved June 3, 2019. March 23—Fifteen of the group commit suicide ... March 24—Fifteen more commit suicide ... March 25—Remaining nine commit suicide
  49. ^ Reimann, Matt (October 14, 2016). "Suicide, Nikes, and comet space ships: the story of the Heaven's Gate cult". Timeline. Retrieved June 3, 2019. 15 people on March 24, another 15 on March 25, and the final nine on March 26
  50. ^ dweisman (March 27, 2019). "22 years ago, Heaven's Gate couldn't wait". Escondido Grapevine. Retrieved June 3, 2019. March 24 ... Fifteen members died that night. Fifteen more died the next day, followed by nine on March 26.
  51. ^ Kube, Michelle (March 27, 2017). "March 26, 1997—Heaven's Gate Suicides". kfiam640.iheart.com. Retrieved June 3, 2019. three days starting on March 22
  52. ^ "Some members of suicide cult castrated". CNN.com. March 28, 1997.
  53. ^ a b c d Meyer, Norma; Medina, Hildy (1997-03-28). "Package to office alerts ex-member to the fate of cult". San Diego Union-Tribune. Copley News Service. p. A-1. Archived from the original on March 24, 2020. Alt URL
  54. ^ a b c d Heaven's Gate suicides remembered, CNN, 2011-03-25, retrieved 2019-06-01
  55. ^ a b c Calvo, Dana (1997-03-27). "At Least 39 Found Dead in Luxury Estate". The Signal. Retrieved 2019-06-01 – via Newspapers.com.
  56. ^ "First autopsies completed in cult suicide". CNN. 28 March 2016. Retrieved 2007-10-06.
  57. ^ "An Interview with Astronomer Alan Hale—CTV call-in (Knoxville Freethought Forum 4/23/13)". Youtube.com. Retrieved 11 September 2016.
  58. ^ "Second World Skeptics Congress (Schedule)". amber.zine.cz. Retrieved 18 September 2016.
  59. ^ a b Frazier, Kendrick (1998). "Science and Reason, Foibles and Fallacies, and Doomsdays". Skeptical Inquirer. 22 (6): 6. Retrieved 18 September 2016.
  60. ^ Cornwell, Tim (7 May 1997). "Heaven's Gate member found dead". The Independent. Retrieved 23 June 2014. In an earlier suicide bid, on 1 April, a 58-year-old recluse was found dead in his home in a remote mountain canyon in northern California after dying by suicide. He had left a note indicating he believed that he would also join the dead Heaven's Gate cult members.
  61. ^ Stanziano, Don (1997-04-02). "Cult Inspires First Copycat Suicide". North County Times. pp. A-4. Retrieved 2019-12-02 – via Newspapers.com.
  62. ^ a b Purdum, Todd S. (May 7, 1997). "Ex-Cultist Dies In Suicide Pact; 2d Is 'Critical'". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-10-21. A former member of the Heaven's Gate cult was found dead today in a copycat suicide in a motel room near the scene of the group's mass suicide in San Diego County, and another former member was found unconscious in the same room, the authorities said.
  63. ^ "Heaven's Gate: A timeline". The San Diego Union-Tribune. 18 March 2007. Archived from the original on 2008-10-03. Retrieved 2007-10-21.
  64. ^ Harding, Nick (April 4, 2017). "Mass suicide survivors who stayed behind to keep death cult's bizarre teachings alive for 20 years". Retrieved July 31, 2018.
  65. ^ Zeller 2014a p.71
  66. ^ Zeller 2014
  67. ^ Zeller, Benjamin (2014-11-16). "Anatomy of a mass suicide: The dark, twisted story behind a UFO death cult". Salon. Retrieved 2021-04-26.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  68. ^ Balch, Robert (2002). "Making Sense of the Heaven's Gate Suicides". In Bromley, David G.; Melton, J. Gordon (eds.). Cults, Religion, and Violence. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 211.
  69. ^ Zeller 2014a, p. 38.
  70. ^ Zeller 2014b, p. 99.
  71. ^ Zeller 2014a, p. 102.
  72. ^ a b Zeller 2014a, p. 155.
  73. ^ Zeller 2014a, p. 95.
  74. ^ a b c Zeller 2014a, p. 104.
  75. ^ Zeller 2014a, p. 182.
  76. ^ a b c Lewis 2001, p. 16
  77. ^ a b Lewis 2001, p. 368
  78. ^ Lewis 2001, p. 17
  79. ^ Zeller 2014a, p. 193.
  80. ^ Zeller 2014a, p. 31.
  81. ^ a b Zeller 2014a, pp. 123–24.
  82. ^ Zeller 2014a, p. 184.
  83. ^ Zeller 2014a, pp. 171–72.
  84. ^ Zeller 2014b, p. 38.
  85. ^ Zeller 2014b, p. 143.
  86. ^ Ross, Rick (October 1999). "'Heaven's Gate' Suicides". The Rick A. Ross Institute. Archived from the original on 2002-01-14.
  87. ^ Investigation Discovery. (2019). Heaven's Gate. People's Magazine Investigates: Cults.
  88. ^ Weise, Elizabeth (1997-03-28). "Internet Provided Way To Pay Bills, Spread Message Before Suicide". Seattle Times. Associated Press. Retrieved 2007-12-30.
  89. ^ Paul Virilio, The Information Bomb (Verso, 2005), p. 41.
  90. ^ "Heaven's Gate - How and When It May Be Entered". www.heavensgate.com. Archived from the original on 2021-04-11. Retrieved 2021-04-11.
  91. ^ "Hollywood knocks at 'Heaven's Gate'". Baltimore Sun. 3 April 1997.
  92. ^ "An Endorsement Nike Didn't Want". Adweek. April 21, 1997. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
  93. ^ Wilkens, John (March 21, 2017). "Fascination over Heaven's Gate cult continues, 20 years after mass suicide". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
  94. ^ Feltmate, David (July 3, 2011). "New Religious Movements in Animated Adult Sitcoms—A Spectrum of Portrayals". Religion Compass. 5 (7): 343–354. doi:10.1111/j.1749-8171.2011.00287.x. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
  95. ^ Cusack, Carole M. (2016-04-08). Sacred Suicide. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-06018-5.
  96. ^ Cameron, Charles. "Norway's "cultural Christian" crusader revisited | CSC Center for Strategic Communication". Retrieved 2021-05-03.
  97. ^ Anderson, Kyle (June 19, 2015). "Cowboy REbop: Session #23 – 'Brain Scratch'". Nerdist. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
  98. ^ "frenchandsaunders.com • View topic - Reactions to Small Opening". forums.frenchandsaunders.co.uk. Retrieved 2021-02-07.
  99. ^ "Key and Peele "Cult Mass Suicide" sketch".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  100. ^ Winter, Jessica (December 26, 2000). "Pot of Gold". The Village Voice. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
  101. ^ Savlov, Marc (December 22, 2000). "Movie Review: Dude, Where's My Car?". The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
  102. ^ Simon, Rachel (February 11, 2016). "11 Marvel Easter Eggs In 'Deadpool' That Reference Everything From X-Men Housing To Hugh Jackman's Face". Bustle. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
  103. ^ Morgenstern, Joe (February 6, 2020). "'The Lodge' Review: Chilly and Vacant". Wall Street Journal. WSJ. Retrieved October 4, 2020.
  104. ^ Lattanzio, Ryan (2020-12-03). "'Heaven's Gate' Review: HBO Max Doc Reveals Bonkers UFO Cult as More Than Just a Pop-Culture Joke". IndieWire. Retrieved 2021-05-03.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  105. ^ "Specials—Steven Wilson Interview". The Dutch Progressive Rock Page. Retrieved 2008-04-07.
  106. ^ Propane Nightmares - Official Video. Pendulum YouTube channel. Retrieved 15 August 2008.
  107. ^ Davenport, Will (December 13, 2012). "Review: Captain Murphy - Duality". Roar News. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
  108. ^ Lucas, John (November 28, 2012). "Saint Motel spikes hooks with dark subject matter". The Georgia Straight. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
  109. ^ Anthony, David (March 2, 2015). "Nicolas Cage joined a hamster cult for the new Andrew Jackson Jihad video". The A.V. Club. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
  110. ^ Martin, Ronan (December 5, 2014). "Marshall Applewhite". The Skinny. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
  111. ^ Carpenter, Lorraine (January 17, 2017). "Drab Majesty's divinely inspired tragic-wave music". Cult MTL. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
  112. ^ Barney, Tyler (July 11, 2018). "Follow Drab Majesty from here to eternity". Orlando Weekly. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
  113. ^ Miller, Kai (July 31, 2018). "Lil Uzi Vert's 'Eternal Atake' Art References Heaven's Gate Cult - XXL". XXL Mag. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
  114. ^ Hamblin, Abby (August 1, 2018). "Remember the Heaven's Gate cult? Rapper Lil Uzi Vert is hearing from its former members". San Diego Union-Tribune. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
  115. ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b8B48Lvc6o
  116. ^ Thomas, Dexter (April 5, 2018). "The creator of "Far Cry 5" is worried the world might actually be ending". Vice. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
  117. ^ "Grand Theft Auto V: 10 Things You Never Knew About The Altruist Cult". TheGamer. 2020-05-04. Retrieved 2021-04-27.
  118. ^ Zaklow, Jill (October 8, 1999). "Interview: October 8, 1999". Book Reporter. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
  119. ^ "Fiction Book Review: Victims by Travis Jeppesen". Publishers Weekly. May 5, 2003. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
  120. ^ "39 dead bodies, all wearing the same shoes". News.com.au. May 9, 2017. Retrieved November 27, 2019.
  121. ^ Caffier, Justin (March 15, 2017). "The Heaven's Gate Nikes and the Sneakerheads Who Collect Them". Vice. Retrieved January 11, 2020. A pair of the original Decades is currently listed on eBay for the too on-the-nose asking price of $6,660, though Jankun says there's no way anyone should or will pay that much.

Bibliography

Template:Z148

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Heaven%27s_Gate_(religious_group)&oldid=1023126488"