Parker Ayotte
Mrs. Van Horn
Composition for College
December 12, 2018
Heaven’s Gate Suicides
On March 26th, 1997, the bodies of 39 people who took their lives in a mass suicide, were found in a mansion in San Diego. They were members of the Heaven’s Gate cult, led by Marshall Applewhite who believed that by committing suicide, they would get on a UFO traveling behind the Hale Bopp comet and ascend to The Evolutionary Level Above Human. At first glance, it is difficult to imagine how some many people could be convinced to commit suicide; however, through careful examination of the group’s leaders, beliefs, and recruitment strategies, the suicides may finally be understood.
In order to understand the cult and its motives, it is important to first understand its leaders. The group was founded by Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles. The two met in 1972 and began to exchange ideas regarding mysticism, extraterrestrials, and the occult. The two traveled the country together trying to convert people to their way of thinking but initially were met with failure. In 1974, Applewhite was arrested for stealing a rental car, which he stated was his because God meant for him to have it. He ended up serving six months in prison. During this time, he shifted his thinking away from the occult and began focusing specifically on extraterrestrials (Robinson, and Wendy Gale). After he got out of jail, the group began to grow. Applewhite and Nettles went by many different names over this time, referring to themselves as, Guinea and Pig, Bo and Peep, Ti and Do, and many others as their theology evolved. The group posited that Applewhite was Jesus reincarnated and that Nettles was God in human form. In 1985, Nettles passed away of liver cancer. By this point, the group had around 80 followers. Applewhite claimed that Nettles had “too much energy” to be contained in a human body and used that as a justification for her death. Applewhite was one of the 39 people who committed suicide on that day; before his death claiming that he was suffering from a similar form of cancer to the one that killed Nettles, however, there was no evidence of cancer found during his autopsy.
The theology that Applewhite and his followers prescribed to is perhaps more bizarre than its leaders. Heaven’s Gate is typically referred to as a “UFO religion” and its followers believed that God was not some ethereal being, but instead a highly evolved form of extraterrestrial life and a member of The Evolutionary Level Above Human or TELAH. They claimed that members of TELAH created the earth as an experiment and that soon, the earth would be “recycled” because the experiment had run its course (Last Chance to Evacuate Earth Before It's Recycled). Around the same time, the Hale Bopp comet was passing earth, and some conspiracy theorists claimed that there was a UFO flying behind it. Applewhite and his followers interpreted this comet as a harbinger of the earth’s destruction and believed that, by killing themselves, they would evolve into TELAH and join the others on the comet, thus escaping their fate (Last Chance to Evacuate Earth Before It's Recycled).
On March 22, 1997, when the Hale Bopp comet was closest to earth, the suicides began. Applewhite’s followers dressed in black unisex clothing with Nike shoes. They proceeded to eat applesauce laced with phenobarbital and chased it with a shot of vodka. Finally, they placed plastic bags over their heads and laid down to die (Heaven's Gate Cult Members Found Dead).
But how did the group manage to convince so many people to go through with their suicide? The answer lies in the group’s advanced recruitment strategies as well as a set of rules that led to the total restriction of individual thought. Heaven’s Gate is sometimes referred to as a “Web Cult” due to their extensive use of the internet to gain followers. They used strategies such as spamming meta tags to manipulate search engines which were almost unheard of before 2000. This advanced use of the internet allowed them to reach many people from across the nation that they would otherwise not have been able to reach. However, it is only once someone has joined the group that their true evil genius begins to shine. The group had a list of major and lesser offenses. There were only three major offenses: deceit, sensuality (even in thought), and breaking any instruction or procedure knowingly. Already, these are disturbing. They aimed to prevent any disobedience, ban strong emotions, and prevent a cover-up if any of those rules are broken. They all worked together to create perfectly obedient followers. However, the true extent of their control lies within the group’s minor offenses. There are 31 minor offenses ranging from “16. Having likes and dislikes”(Major and Lesser Offenses) to “2. Trusting my own judgment – using my own mind”(Major and Lesser Offenses) and many more rules designed to restrict followers. They also told them, “The space aliens, or Luciferians, use the discarnate spirits (the minds that are disembodied at the death of a body) as their primary servants – against potential members of the Kingdom of God. These ‘influences,’ or discarnates, are constantly ‘programming’ every human ‘plant’ (vehicle or body), to accept a set of beliefs and norms for behavior during a lifetime. From our point of view, this ‘programming’ finds that body, and the vast majority of all human bodies, barely usable by students of the Kingdom of Heaven”(Applewhite). In other words, everybody who tells them they are being crazy is really Satan trying to manipulate them. They claim that only those worthy of evolution will be able to see past this deception. Together with these rules, followers of Heaven’s Gate were completely under the control of Applewhite and willing to do anything he asked without question.
In conclusion, Heaven’s Gate was one of the largest mass suicides in American history. Its leaders carefully manipulated their followers into complete subservience, then used that power to compel them to die. Heaven’s Gate is a cautionary tale about the dangers of circular logic, and the damage insanity can do when spread by an effective communicator.
Works Cited
Applewhite, Marshall. “Do's Intro: Purpose – Belief.” Heaven's Gate – How and When It May Be
Entered, www.heavensgate.com/misc/intro.htm.
“Heaven's Gate Cult Members Found Dead.” History.com, A&E Television Networks,
www.history.com/this-day-in-history/heavens-gate-cult-members-found-dead.
“Last Chance to Evacuate Earth Before It's Recycled.” Heaven's Gate – How and When It May
Be Entered, www.heavensgate.com/misc/vt092996.htm.
“Major and Lesser Offenses.” Heaven's Gate – How and When It May Be Entered,
www.heavensgate.com/book/2-6.htm.
Robinson, and Wendy Gale. “Heaven's Gate: the End.” OUP Academic, Oxford University
Press, 1 Dec. 1997, academic.oup.com/jcmc/article/3/3/JCMC334/4584381.