Heaven's Gate was an American
new religious movement
A new religious movement (NRM), also known as a new religion, is a religious or Spirituality, spiritual group that has modern origins and is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin, or they can be part ...
known primarily for the
mass suicides committed by its members in 1997. Commonly designated as a
cult
Cults are social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term ...
, it was founded in 1974 and led by
Marshall Applewhite (1931–1997) and
Bonnie Nettles (1927–1985), known within the movement as Do and Ti. Nettles and Applewhite first met in 1972 and went on a journey of spiritual discovery, identifying themselves as the
two witnesses of the
Book of Revelation
The Book of Revelation, also known as the Book of the Apocalypse or the Apocalypse of John, is the final book of the New Testament, and therefore the final book of the Bible#Christian Bible, Christian Bible. Written in Greek language, Greek, ...
, attracting a following of several hundred people in the mid-1970s. In 1976, a core group of a few dozen members stopped recruiting and instituted a
monastic lifestyle.
Scholars have described the
theology
Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itse ...
of Heaven's Gate as a mixture of
Christian millenarianism,
New Age
New Age is a range of Spirituality, spiritual or Religion, religious practices and beliefs that rapidly grew in Western world, Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclecticism, eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise d ...
, and
ufology
Ufology, sometimes written UFOlogy ( or ), is the investigation of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by people who believe that they may be of extraordinary claims, extraordinary origins (most frequently of extraterrestrial hypothesis, extrate ...
, and it has been characterized 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 from cancer in 1985 challenged the group's views on ascension; while they originally believed that they would ascend to heaven while alive aboard a
UFO, they came to believe that the body was merely a "container" or "vehicle" for the soul and that their consciousness would be transferred to "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 Applewhite, in a house in the San Diego County suburb of
Rancho Santa Fe. They had participated in a coordinated series of
ritual suicides, coinciding with the closest approach of
Comet Hale–Bopp
Comet Hale–Bopp (formally designated C/1995 O1) is a long-period comet that was one of the most widely observed of the 20th century and one of the brightest seen for many decades.
Alan Hale (astronomer), Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp disc ...
. 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."
History
The son of a
Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word ''Pr ...
minister and a former soldier,
Marshall Applewhite began his foray into
Biblical prophecy in the early 1970s. He was fired from the
University of St. Thomas in
Houston, Texas
Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...
, over an alleged relationship with one of his male students. In March 1972, he met
Bonnie Nettles, a 44-year-old married nurse with an interest in
theosophy
Theosophy is a religious movement established in the United States in the late 19th century. Founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and based largely on her writings, it draws heavily from both older European philosophies such as Neop ...
and Biblical prophecy. The circumstances of their meeting are unclear. According to Applewhite's writings, the two met in a hospital where she worked as a nurse while he was visiting a sick friend.
James Lewis suggests that Applewhite may have been a patient in the facility. Applewhite later recalled that he felt that he had known Nettles for a long time and concluded that they had met in a past life. She told him their meeting had been foretold to her by
extraterrestrials, persuading him that he had a divine assignment.
Applewhite and Nettles pondered the life of
St. Francis of Assisi and read works by
Helena Blavatsky
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (; – 8 May 1891), often known as Madame Blavatsky, was a Russian-born Mysticism, mystic and writer who emigrated to the United States where she co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. She gained an internat ...
,
R. D. Laing, and
Richard Bach
Richard David Bach (born June 23, 1936) is an American writer. He has written numerous flight-related works of fiction and non-fiction. His works include '' Jonathan Livingston Seagull'' (1970) and '' Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Mes ...
. They kept a
King James Bible
The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), is an Early Modern English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by ...
and studied passages from the
New Testament
The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...
focusing on
Christology
In Christianity, Christology is a branch of Christian theology, theology that concerns Jesus. Different denominations have different opinions on questions such as whether Jesus was human, divine, or both, and as a messiah what his role would b ...
,
asceticism
Asceticism is a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from worldly pleasures through self-discipline, self-imposed poverty, and simple living, often for the purpose of pursuing Spirituality, spiritual goals. Ascetics may withdraw from the world ...
, and
eschatology
Eschatology (; ) concerns expectations of the end of Contemporary era, present age, human history, or the world itself. The end of the world or end times is predicted by several world religions (both Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic and non-Abrah ...
. Applewhite also read
science fiction
Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
, including works by
Robert A. Heinlein and
Arthur C. Clarke. By June 19, Applewhite and Nettles's beliefs had solidified. They concluded that they had been chosen to fulfill biblical prophecies and given higher-level minds than other people. They wrote a pamphlet that described
Jesus
Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
'
reincarnation
Reincarnation, also known as rebirth or transmigration, is the Philosophy, philosophical or Religion, religious concept that the non-physical essence of a living being begins a new lifespan (disambiguation), lifespan in a different physical ...
as a Texan, a veiled reference to Applewhite. Furthermore, they concluded that they were the
two witnesses described in the
Book of Revelation
The Book of Revelation, also known as the Book of the Apocalypse or the Apocalypse of John, is the final book of the New Testament, and therefore the final book of the Bible#Christian Bible, Christian Bible. Written in Greek language, Greek, ...
, and occasionally visited churches and spiritual groups to speak of their identities, often referring to themselves as "The Two", or "The UFO Two". They believed they would be killed and then resurrected and, in view of others, transported onto a spaceship. This event, which they referred to as "the Demonstration", was to prove their claims. These ideas were poorly received by other religious groups.
The Two would gain their first follower in May 1974: Sharon Morgan, who abandoned her children to join them. A month later, Morgan left The Two and returned to her family. Nettles and Applewhite were arrested and charged with credit card fraud for using Morgan's cards, although she had consented to their use. The charges were dropped. A routine check revealed that Applewhite had stolen a rental car from
St. Louis nine months earlier, which he still possessed. Applewhite spent six months in jail primarily in Missouri, and was released in early 1975, rejoining Nettles.
Eventually, Applewhite and Nettles resolved to contact extraterrestrials and sought like-minded followers. They published advertisements for meetings, where they recruited disciples, called "the crew". At the events, they purported to represent beings from another planet, the Next Level, who sought participants for an experiment. They said those who agreed to participate in the experiment would be brought to a higher evolutionary level. In April 1975, during a meeting with a group of eighty people in
Studio City, Los Angeles
Studio City is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, United States, in the southeast San Fernando Valley, just west of the Cahuenga Pass. It is named after the studio lot that was established in the area by film producer Mack Sennett in ...
, they shared their "simultaneous" revelation that they were the two witnesses in the Bible's story of the
end time.
According to Benjamin Zeller, while accounts of the meeting differ, all describe it as momentous and agree that Applewhite and Nettles presented themselves as charismatic leaders with an important spiritual message. About 25 individuals joined the group.
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 public eye and joined the group. Later that year, on ''
CBS Evening News
The ''CBS Evening News'' is the flagship evening News broadcasting#Television, television news program of CBS News, the news division of the CBS television network in the United States. The ''CBS Evening News'' is a daily evening broadcast featu ...
'',
Walter Cronkite reported on the disappearances in one of the first national reports on the developing religious group: "A score of persons from a small Oregon town have disappeared. It's a mystery whether they've been taken on a so-called trip to eternity – or simply been taken."
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 nearly one hundred members 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 the leaders claimed to have already reached.
Applewhite and Nettles used a variety of
aliases over the years, notably "
Bo and Peep" and "
Do and Ti". The group also had several names prior to the adoption of the name Heaven's Gate. At the time
Jacques Vallée studied the group, it was known as Human Individual Metamorphosis (HIM). The group re-invented and renamed itself several times. Applewhite believed he was directly related to Jesus, meaning he was an "Evolutionary Kingdom Level Above Human". His writings, which combined aspects of
Millennialism
Millennialism () or chiliasm (from the Greek equivalent) is a belief which is held by some religious denominations. According to this belief, a Messianic Age will be established on Earth prior to the Last Judgment and the future permanent s ...
,
Gnosticism
Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek language, Ancient Greek: , Romanization of Ancient Greek, romanized: ''gnōstikós'', Koine Greek: Help:IPA/Greek, �nostiˈkos 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced ...
, and science fiction, suggest he believed himself to be Jesus' successor and the "Present Representative" of Christ on Earth.
Do and Ti taught early on that Do's bodily "vehicle" was inhabited by the same alien spirit that belonged to Jesus; Ti was presented as
God the Father
God the Father is a title given to God in Christianity. In mainstream trinitarian Christianity, God the Father is regarded as the first Person of the Trinity, followed by the second person, Jesus Christ the Son, and the third person, God th ...
, Do's "older member".
The crew used various recruitment methods 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".
In April 1976, the group stopped recruiting and became reclusive, and instituted a rigid set of behavioral guidelines, including
banning sexual activity and the use of drugs. Applewhite and Nettles solidified their temporal and religious authority over the group. Benjamin Zeller described the movement as having transformed "from a loosely organized social group to a centralized religious movement comparable to a roving monastery".
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 Heaven's Gate.
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 to be an appetizing alternative to traditional dogmas in
Judaism
Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...
,
Catholicism
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
and
evangelical Christianity
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that emphasizes evangelism, or the preaching and spreading of th ...
. Many of Applewhite and Nettles' crew hailed from these 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 environment well into the mid-1980s. Not all of Applewhite's crew were hippies recruited from alternative religious backgroundsone 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. He joined the group in 1975. As its numbers grew in its pre-Internet days, the clan of "UFO followers" seemed to have in common a need for communal belonging to an alternative path to higher existence outside the constraints of institutionalized faith.
Identifying itself by the business name "Higher Source", the group used its website to proselytize and recruit followers beginning in the early 1990s. Rumors started spreading among the group in the following years that the upcoming
Comet Hale–Bopp
Comet Hale–Bopp (formally designated C/1995 O1) is a long-period comet that was one of the most widely observed of the 20th century and one of the brightest seen for many decades.
Alan Hale (astronomer), Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp disc ...
housed the secret to their ultimate salvation and ascent into the kingdom of heaven.
Contemporary media coverage
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. He expressed concerns about contactee groups' authoritarian political and religious outlooks, and Heaven's Gate did not escape criticism. Known to the media (though largely ignored), Heaven's Gate was better known in
UFO circles, and through a series of academic studies by sociologist
Robert Balch.
In January 1994, ''
LA Weekly
''LA Weekly'' is a free weekly alternative newspaper in Los Angeles, California. The paper covers music, arts, film, theater, culture, and other local news in the Los Angeles area. ''LA Weekly'' was founded in 1978 by Jay Levin (among others), ...
'' ran an article on the group, then known as "The Total Overcomers". Richard Ford, who would play a key role in the 1997 group suicide, discovered Heaven's Gate through this article and eventually joined them, renaming himself Rio DiAngelo.
''
Coast to Coast AM'' host
Art Bell discussed 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 Bell's programs contributed to Heaven's Gate's group suicide. ''
Knowledge Fight'' host Dan Friesen blames more on
Courtney Brown rather than Bell.
Louis Theroux contacted Heaven's Gate for his
BBC2
BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matter, incorporating genres such as comedy, drama and ...
documentary series, ''
Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends'', in early March 1997, weeks before their mass suicide. In response to his e-mail, Theroux was told that Heaven's Gate could not participate in the documentary: "at the present time a project like this would be an interference with what we must focus on."
Mass suicide
In October 1996,
the group rented a large house which they called "The Monastery", a mansion located near 18341 Colina Norte (later renamed to Paseo Victoria) in
Rancho Santa Fe, California. They paid the $7,000 per month rent in cash. The same month, the group purchased alien abduction insurance that would cover up to fifty members and would pay out $1million per person (the policy covered abduction, impregnation, or death by aliens).
[Edith Lederer, "Alien Abduction Insurance Cancelled!"](_blank)
, Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City.
Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...
, 2April 1997, Retrieved March 12, 2008 In June 1995, they had purchased land near
Manzano, New Mexico, and began creating a compound out of rubber tires and concrete, but had left abruptly in April 1996.
On March 13, 1997, media reported on a mass sighting of
unidentified lights over Phoenix. During March 1920, Marshall Applewhite taped himself in a video titled ''Do's Final Exit'', speaking of mass suicide and "the only way to evacuate this Earth". After asserting that
Comet Hale–Bopp
Comet Hale–Bopp (formally designated C/1995 O1) is a long-period comet that was one of the most widely observed of the 20th century and one of the brightest seen for many decades.
Alan Hale (astronomer), Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp disc ...
was the sign that the group had been looking for, as well as the speculation that an
unidentified flying object
An unidentified flying object (UFO) is an object or phenomenon seen in the sky but not yet identified or explained. The term was coined when United States Air Force (USAF) investigations into flying saucers found too broad a range of shapes ...
(UFO) may have been trailing the comet, Applewhite and his 38 followers prepared for ritual suicide, coinciding with the closest approach of the comet, so their souls could reach the Next Level before the closure of "Heaven's Gate". Members believed that after their deaths, a UFO would take their souls to another "level of existence above human", which was described as being both physical and spiritual. Their preparations included most members videotaping a farewell message.
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 the remaining participants cleaning up after the prior group's deaths.
The suicides began on March 22–23 in three waves. To kill themselves, members took
phenobarbital mixed with
apple sauce or pudding and washed it down with
vodka
Vodka ( ; is a clear distilled beverage, distilled alcoholic beverage. Its varieties originated in Poland and Russia. Vodka is composed mainly of water and ethanol but sometimes with traces of impurities and flavourings. Traditionally, it is ...
. After ingesting the mix, they secured plastic bags around their heads to induce
asphyxiation. All 39 were dressed in identical black shirts and sweatpants, 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 terms of ''
Star Trek
''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the Star Trek: The Original Series, series of the same name and became a worldwide Popular culture, pop-culture Cultural influence of ...
''). Each member carried a five-dollar bill and three quarters in their pockets. 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
Vagrancy is the condition of wandering homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants usually live in poverty and support themselves by travelling while engaging in begging, waste picker, scavenging, or petty theft. In Western ...
laws and the quarters were for calling home from pay phones. Another former member stated that it was a reference to a
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Fau ...
story, which said $5.75 was "the cost to ride the tail of a comet to heaven." No such passage from the writings of Twain is known to exist.
After a member died, 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 a 2020 interview with Harry Robinson, two members who were not in Rancho Santa Fe when the suicides happened said that the identical clothing was a uniform representing unity for the mass suicide, while the Nike Decades were chosen because the group "got a good deal on the shoes". Applewhite was also a fan of Nikes "and therefore everyone was expected to wear and like Nikes" within the group. Heaven's Gate had a saying, "Just Do it", echoing Nike's slogan, but pronouncing "Do" as "Doe", to reflect Applewhite's nickname.
Among the dead was Thomas Nichols, brother of the actress
Nichelle Nichols, best known for her role as
Uhura in the original television series of ''
Star Trek
''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the Star Trek: The Original Series, series of the same name and became a worldwide Popular culture, pop-culture Cultural influence of ...
''.
Applewhite was the third to last member to die; two people remained after him, and were the only ones 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,
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 on the list of recipients was Rio DiAngelo. The package DiAngelo received on the evening of March 25,
as other packages sent had,
contained two VHS videotapes, one with ''Do's Final Exit'', and the other with the "farewell messages" of group followers.
It also contained a letter stating that, among other things, "we have exited our vehicles just as we entered them."
DiAngelo informed his boss of the contents of the packages, and received a ride from him from Los Angeles to the Heaven's Gate home so he could verify the letter. DiAngelo found a back door intentionally left unlocked,
and used a video camera to record what he saw. After leaving the house, DiAngelo's boss, who had waited outside, encouraged him to make calls alerting the authorities.
The
San Diego County Sheriff's Department received an anonymous tip through 911 at 3:15p.m. on March 26,
suggesting they "check on the welfare of the residents".
Days after the suicides, the caller was revealed to be DiAngelo.
The lone deputy who first responded to the call entered the home through a side door,
saw ten bodies, and was nearly overcome by a "pungent odor".
(The bodies were already decomposing in the hot Southern California spring.)
After a cursory search by two more deputies found no one alive, they retreated until a search warrant could be procured.
All 39 bodies were ultimately
cremated
Cremation is a method of Disposal of human corpses, final disposition of a corpse through Combustion, burning.
Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India, Nepal, and ...
.
Aftermath
The Heaven's Gate deaths were widely publicized in the
media
Media may refer to:
Communication
* Means of communication, tools and channels used to deliver information or data
** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
** Interactive media, media that is inter ...
as an example of
mass suicide. When the news broke of its 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 chose not to respond until the next day at a press conference after researching the details of the incident.
Speaking at the Second World Skeptics Congress in
Heidelberg
Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...
, Germany on July 24, 1998:
Hale said that well before Heaven's Gate, he had told a colleague:
News of the mass suicide motivated the copycat suicide of a 58-year-old man living near
Marysville, California. 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 then been reported. The man was found dead by a friend on March 31 and had no known connection with Heaven's Gate.
At least three former members of Heaven's Gate died by suicide in the months following the mass suicide. On May 6, 1997, Wayne Cooke and Chuck Humphrey (known as "Rkkody" within the group) attempted suicide in a hotel in a manner similar to that used by the group. Cooke died, but Humphrey survived and was saved by authorities.
Another former member, James Pirkey Jr., died by suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot wound on May 11. In February 1998, Humphrey killed himself in Arizona. His body was found carrying a five-dollar bill and four quarters in his pocket; next to him, a note: "Do not revive".
On March 22, the same day as the Heaven's Gate suicide, five members of the
Order of the Solar Temple group also
died in a mass suicide. The Solar Temple happened to be a group with similar beliefs, in both cases believing that suicide would allow their souls to be transported into space.
This led to initial suspicions of a connection,
though police investigating the Heaven's Gate deaths refused to acknowledge these speculations.
The Solar Temple suicides had been timed for the
vernal equinox on March 20, not the comet, but due to several failed attempts it only happened on the 22nd. There was no apparent connection between the two groups.
Although most people considered the event a mass suicide, sociologist and former cult member
Janja Lalich referred to the event as "murder". UCLA psychiatrist
Louis J. West described the dead members as "victims of a hoax
..There was villainy here."
Two former members, Marc and Sarah King of
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona. With over 1.6 million residents at the 2020 census, it is the ...
, operating as the TELAH Foundation, are believed to maintain the group's website.
The house at which the mass suicide took place became a stigma on the neighborhood. Local residents opted to rename the street on which it was located to "Paseo Victoria". The property itself ended up being purchased by a local developer in 1999 for $668,000 during a foreclosure sale, well below half its assessed value of $1.4 million. It was subsequently purchased by neighbors who razed the building, built a new house in its place, and changed the address to 18239.
Belief system
Scholars disagree over whether the theology of Heaven's Gate is fundamentally either
New Age
New Age is a range of Spirituality, spiritual or Religion, religious practices and beliefs that rapidly grew in Western world, Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclecticism, eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise d ...
or
Christian
A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...
in nature. Benjamin Zeller has argued that the theology of Heaven's Gate was primarily rooted in
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that emphasizes evangelism, or the preaching and spreading of th ...
but it also had New Age elements. Scholars have described the
theology
Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itse ...
of Heaven's Gate as a mixture of
Christian millenarianism,
New Age
New Age is a range of Spirituality, spiritual or Religion, religious practices and beliefs that rapidly grew in Western world, Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclecticism, eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise d ...
, and
ufology
Ufology, sometimes written UFOlogy ( or ), is the investigation of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by people who believe that they may be of extraordinary claims, extraordinary origins (most frequently of extraterrestrial hypothesis, extrate ...
, and as such it has been mainly characterized as a
UFO religion.
The group adopted the
ancient astronaut hypothesis, which was prominent at the time of the group's formation due to the then-recent publication of works like
Erich von Däniken's ''
Chariots of the Gods?''.
The term "ancient astronauts" is used to refer to various forms of the concept that extraterrestrials visited Earth in the distant past. 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." Only individuals who joined Heaven's Gate, follow Applewhite and Nettle's belief system, and make the sacrifices required by membership would be allowed to escape human suffering.
Paralleling the beliefs of ancient astronaut theorists like Däniken, Heaven's Gate
interpreted the Bible as recording events of extraterrestrial contact.
Initially, recruits had been told that they would be biologically and chemically transformed into extraterrestrial beings and would be transported aboard a spacecraft, which would come to Earth and take them to heaven – the "Next Level". When Bonnie Lou Nettles (Ti) died of cancer in 1985, the group's doctrine was confounded because Nettles was "chosen" by the Next Level to be a messenger on Earth, yet her body had died instead of leaving physically to outer space. Their belief system was then revised to include the leaving of consciousness from the body as equivalent to leaving the Earth in a spacecraft.
The group declared that it was against
suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death.
Risk factors for suicide include mental disorders, physical disorders, and substance abuse. Some suicides are impulsive acts driven by stress (such as from financial or ac ...
, because in its own context, to commit suicide is "to turn against the Next Level when it is being offered", and the members of the group also believed that their human bodies were only "vehicles" which were meant to help them on their journey. Therefore, by committing suicide, they would not allow their consciousness to leave their human bodies and join the next level; they would remain alive rather than participate in the group suicide because suicide was considered the suicide of their consciousness. In conversations, when they referred to a person or a person's body, they routinely used the word "vehicle".
The members of the group adopted names which consisted of three letters followed by the suffix ''-ody'' to signify themselves as "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 family, friends, gender, sexuality, individuality, jobs, money, and possessions. "The Evolutionary Level Above Human" (TELAH) was a "physical, corporeal place", another world in our universe, where residents live in pure bliss and nourish themselves by absorbing pure sunlight. At the next level, beings do not engage in sexual intercourse, eating or dying, the things that make humans "mammalian". Heaven's Gate believed that what the Bible calls God is a highly developed
extraterrestrial.
Members of Heaven's Gate believed that evil space aliensLuciferiansfalsely represented themselves to Earthlings as "God" and conspired to keep humans from developing. As technically advanced humanoids, these aliens have spacecraft, space-time travel, telepathy, and increased longevity. They use holograms to fake miracles. They are carnal beings with gender, and they stopped training to achieve the Kingdom of God thousands of years ago. Heaven's Gate believed that all existing religions on Earth had been corrupted by these aliens.
Although these basic beliefs of the group generally stayed consistent over the years, "the details of their ideology were flexible enough to undergo modification over time". 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
Satan, also known as the Devil, is a devilish entity in Abrahamic religions who seduces humans into sin (or falsehood). In Judaism, Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God, typically regarded as a metaphor for the '' yetzer hara'', or ' ...
, and adding several other
New Age
New Age is a range of Spirituality, spiritual or Religion, religious practices and beliefs that rapidly grew in Western world, Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclecticism, eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise d ...
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
..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." 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".
The concept of walk-ins aided Applewhite and Nettles in personally starting from what they considered to be "clean slates". In this clean slate, they were no longer considered 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". Over time, Applewhite 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
Nestorianism is a term used in Christian theology and Church history to refer to several mutually related but doctrinary, doctrinarily distinct sets of teachings. The first meaning of the term is related to the original teachings of Christian t ...
, 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.
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:
# 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
The Rapture is an Christian eschatology, eschatological position held by some Christians, particularly those of American evangelicalism, consisting of an end-time event when all dead Christian believers will be resurrected and, joined with Chr ...
", 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.
# Natural death, accidental death, or death from random violence. Here, the "graduating soul" leaves the human container for a perfected next-level body.
# 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.
# 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. This occurred when 39 members died by suicide and "graduated".
Animals were said to have souls, and a soul in an animal could enter the next level, a human soul, if it becomes a servant of humans, such as in a
guide dog, and "sees itself as a family member in that human family".
Structure
The group was only open to adults over the age of 18. Members gave up their possessions and lived an
ascetic life devoid of indulgences. The group was tightly knit, and everything was
communally shared. In public, each member of the group always carried a five-dollar bill and a roll of quarters. Eight men in the group, including Applewhite, voluntarily underwent
castration
Castration is any action, surgery, surgical, chemical substance, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses use of the testicles: the male gonad. Surgical castration is bilateral orchiectomy (excision of both testicles), while chemical cas ...
as an extreme means of maintaining the ascetic lifestyle. The group initially attempted castration by having one of its members, a former nurse, perform the castration, but this almost resulted in the patient's death, and caused at least one member to leave Heaven's Gate. Every castration that followed was done in a hospital.
The group earned revenue by offering professional website development under the business name ''Higher Source''.
The cultural theorist
Paul Virilio described the group as a
cybersect, due to its heavy reliance on
computer-mediated communication
Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is defined as any human communication that occurs through the use of two or more electronic devices. While the term has traditionally referred to those communications that occur via computer-mediated forma ...
prior to its collective suicide.
In popular culture
In 1979,
Gary Sherman produced the
made-for-TV movie ''Mysterious Two'' for
NBC, based on the exploits of Applewhite and Nettles, then relatively unknown, which aired in 1982.
In its first live episode following the mass suicide, ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (''SNL'') is an American Late night television in the United States, late-night live television, live sketch comedy variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Michaels and Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC. The ...
'' 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.
In 2018, rapper
Lil Uzi Vert posted a concept album art for their then-upcoming album, ''
Eternal Atake''. Soon after, they were threatened with legal action by Marc and Sarah King, the couple responsible for maintaining the group's website and intellectual property. A representative for the two wrote "
ziis using and adapting our copyrights and trademarks without our permission and the infringement will be taken up with our attorneys. This is not fair use or parody; it is a direct and clear infringement". The teased cover contained a logo almost identical to the Heaven's Gate logo, with similar text and visuals below. When the album officially released, it would be changed substantially to instead feature three figures standing on the moon, accompanied by a UFO overhead.
''
Heaven's Gate: The Cult of Cults'', a documentary miniseries about the cult, was released on
HBO Max in 2020.
In 2021, Heaven's Gate was one of the subjects in the first season of
Vice Media
Vice Media Group LLC is a Canadian-American digital media and broadcasting company. Vice Media encompasses four main business areas: Vice Studios Group (film and TV production); Vice TV (a joint venture with A&E Networks, also known as Vicelan ...
's documentary television series ''
Dark Side of the 90s'' entitled "A Tale of Two Cults".
Heaven's Gate was the subject of the 10-part podcast of the same name produced by
Glynn Washington to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the mass suicide.
In February 2023, a movie following the story of Applewhite and Nettles entitled ''The Leader'' was introduced during the
Berlin Film Festival. In October 2023, it was announced that
Michael C. Hall and
Grace Caroline Currey had joined the cast.
Nike Decades
The infamy which was caused by the mass suicides, their limited availability, and their sudden discontinuation have been cited as reasons for the high resale value of Nike Decades.
See also
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UFO religion
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Peoples Temple
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Jonestown
The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, better known by its informal name "Jonestown", was a remote settlement in Guyana established by the Peoples Temple, an American religious movement under the leadership of Jim Jones. Jonestown became in ...
*
Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God
*
Aum Shinrikyo
, better known by their former name , is a Japanese new religions, Japanese new religious movement and doomsday cult founded by Shoko Asahara in 1987. It carried out the deadly Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995 and was found to have been respo ...
**
Tokyo subway sarin attack
Notes
References
Bibliography
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Further reading
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External links
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Heaven's Gate Podcast providing more in-depth information, including interviews with former members and relatives
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Heaven's Gate VHS Tapes at
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...
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College Lecture on Heaven's Gate at
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...
{{Authority control
1974 establishments in Texas
1997 disestablishments in California
Ancient astronaut speculation
Apocalyptic groups
Christian new religious movements
Mass suicides
New Age organizations
Religious belief systems founded in the United States
Religious organizations disestablished in 1997
Religious organizations established in 1974
Sexual abstinence and religion
UFO religions
Religion and suicide
New religious movements established in the 1970s