Former Cult Member Answers Cult Questions From Twitter

WIRED
Oct 7, 2021

Dr. Janja Lalich, a sociologist who used to be in a cult, answers the internet's burning questions about cults. How did Charles Manson get a cult following? What's the best movie about cults? Why did everyone in the Heaven's Gate cult wear Nikes? How do people get brainwashed? Dr. Janja answers all these questions and much more!

Heaven's Gate 25 Years Later: Former Cult Member Turned Recovery Counselor Explains How Cults Recruit

Daniel Shaw, a former member of Siddha Yoga, offers insight into how tragedies like Heaven's Gate occur

Mary Ellen Cagnassola

People
March 26, 2022

On March 26, 1997, 39 people dressed in matching black shirts, black sweatpants and Nike Decades prepared themselves to board a spacecraft trailing the impending Hale-Bopp comet and ascend to another level of human existence.

At least that's what was told to them by Marshall Applewhite, the cunning and charismatic leader of the group that called themselves Heaven's Gate. In separate groups, Applewhite and his followers mixed the barbiturate phenobarbital into applesauce and washed it down with a swig of vodka, tying plastic bags over their heads to assure asphyxiation.

Over the course of three days, the Southern California mansion that the group called home would become the site of what remains the largest mass suicide in United States history. Police would find Applewhite and the Heaven's Gate members draped in purple shrouds — save for two who were the last to die — each with five dollar bills and three quarters in their pockets.

"Being in the Heaven's Gate cult was an experience in which I gave my power away on all levels," Frank Lyford, a Heaven's Gate member who left the group before its tragic end, told PEOPLE in 2019. "I had to wake up to the fact that I had given that power away before I could wake up to the fact that I could take it back."

Heaven's Gate, now known as one of the most notorious cults, isolated its members from their loved ones and the outside world. They sustained themselves through an early-Internet web design business, Higher Source, and according to survivors who left the group, many never set foot outside their Rancho Santa Fe compound.

In honor of the 25th anniversary of the tragedy, PEOPLE sat down with Daniel Shaw, a psychoanalyst with expertise in cult recovery and a former member of the Siddha Yoga group, to talk about the warning signs of cult ideology, its modern-day iterations and how to help someone in danger.

Siddha Yoga, a spiritualist group that rose to popularity in the 1970s, was founded by the guru Swami Muktananda and later taken over by Swami Chidvilasananda, also known as Gurumayi. Still operational, its leaders have been accused of sexual abuse, pedophilia, harassment, rape and other crimes.

PEOPLE: Tell me a little about your background and your journey to helping victims of cult ideology. Do you consider yourself a survivor?

Shaw: I entered the mental health profession after spending 13 years participating in a religious group, which I came to view as an abusive cult. Once I was licensed as a mental health professional, I began to work with survivors of cults, families with loved ones in cults, and other kinds of abusive, controlling relationships and groups. My own experience with that kind of group is what has led to my working with other survivors, and I consider myself a survivor.

I was a full-time resident and worker in a religious group, where ultimately I was treated in a very abusive way and exploited. It took me more than a decade to understand what was happening. Finally, once I left, I began to study cults, and I met other cult experts, and then wrote about my experience, specifically about traumatic abuse in cults.

PEOPLE: How did you come to join Siddha Yoga?

Shaw: I grew up in a pretty secular Jewish home in New York, and there was no cult activity on anybody's part. We were a socially conscious family, progressive. I was a young adult in the '70s, when everybody was trying to recruit you into something. I managed to avoid getting recruited into anything until the end of my 20s, when I was drawn to Siddha Yoga, which was very popular with a lot of people in the arts at the time, which I was involved with. I got fully drawn into it and decided to commit myself to it and a certain point. Ten years later, I left recognizing how abusive the group really was and how abusive the leader really was.

PEOPLE: Why do people feel compelled to join these abusive groups?

Shaw: The reason anybody gets involved in a group that ultimately can be seen as a cult is that this group is promising a community of people who are committed to a meaningful purpose. In the case of Siddha Yoga, the meaningful purpose was to bring peace and enlightenment to others through meditation. My own experience, upon being introduced to the group and meditation, was absolutely phenomenal and felt incredibly different to anything I'd experienced before.

I felt connection and peace in a way that I had never felt and actually immediately improved some of the things I was struggling with — my anxiety — and it helped me feel much more motivated and more positive. So the initial impact of being introduced to meditation through this group was very powerful. Little by little, my experiences were so meaningful and powerful that I wanted to become a part of the organization, not just a visitor, and because it felt like the most meaningful thing I've ever experienced.

Most people who enter this kind of group — and it doesn't have to be religious, it can be political, it can be a business-oriented group, a self-help group — these kinds of groups attract people who are looking to be more successful, to be more productive, be more happy in their personal lives, to be able to contribute more to society. So the idealistic aims of the people who get involved are taken advantage of in these groups, because the groups themselves claim to have all of these kinds of idealistic purposes.

When a group is a cult, it's because the leader is a malignant narcissist, and these kinds of narcissists can be profound and incredibly charismatic. They make all kinds of claims for super intelligence and all kinds of accomplishments, very often those are fraudulent claims. Back when I got involved, there was no internet, so you didn't have a place to look up a group and find out its background. People who join initially believe that they're part of something very meaningful and important, that they can make a meaningful contribution to, and that they can benefit from you. The deeper you go in, really never an end to what's going to be asked of you. You're going to be asked to give and give and give. If you're not receiving what you were told you would, you'll be told that that's your fault, because you're not giving enough.

PEOPLE: How did you realize you were being taken advantage of and leave the group?

Shaw: In my own case, and in the case of most people in these groups, the participation is initially very exciting and very invigorating. You're in a group of people who are similarly highly motivated and everybody's working very hard towards the goals of making the group a success, and bringing the group's message to a wider audience. But if you get more and more deeply involved in a cultic group, what you begin to understand is that the leader is entirely self-aggrandizing and that the purpose and mission that is stated is never getting fulfilled. The only thing happening is that the leader is becoming more powerful and every way, having more control over the followers having more money, in many cases having whatever person they want to have sex with at their disposal.

Most people who spend anyone's time deeply involved in the group become exhausted and burned out. They work night and day, they're always on high alert. Everything is always a crisis. Many cult members blame themselves and their failure to be committed and motivated enough. I certainly was in that position for a while before I left, and once I left, I did so because I witnessed a great deal of abuse and cruelty and manipulation of people, including myself. When I heard a story from another follower about a young woman in the group who was being sexually abused by one of the higher-ups, who was told that it was her fault, and that she should never tell her mother. Actually, it was hearing that story that finally snapped me out.

PEOPLE: What are some warning signs that someone is becoming a victim of cult ideology?

Shaw: A group that has the characteristics of a cult, you don't necessarily have immediate exposure to the leader, you're more exposed to the followers at that point. The followers who are already involved are eager to welcome new recruits and make them feel very important and special. We call that love bombing. Once you've been recruited, and you really want to commit to being in the group, you may start to have more exposure to the leader and to other group dynamics, because the group kind of follows the behavior of the leader. That behavior in social psychology is called intermittent reinforcement. So if you're in a relationship or a group in which your experience is that you are greatly appreciated and loved and paid attention to, interspersed with being intimidated, that's the first and most important red flag.

PEOPLE: What can loved ones do to help a friend or family member who is recruited by one of these groups?

Shaw: Loved ones are in a very painful situation. They often feel helpless and unable to reach the person who's gotten involved in this kind of group. Being angry at them, confronting them, trying to prove them wrong, typically will drive people deeper into the group and further alienate them from you. So in order to try not to create further alienation, family members can try to extend themselves in a loving and empathetic way. It's very difficult because they have to hide their fear and their pain when they do that, but if it's maintaining that connection, they have a chance sooner or later — and it's often quite a bit later — for that family member to come back and realize they are loved unconditionally. That is an ideal situation.

PEOPLE: In the case of Heaven's Gate, how do these groups escalate to such a level of tragedy?

Shaw: Most groups don't end in this kind of mass suicide tragedy, but the ones that have ended in that way certainly get the most publicity, because it's the ultimate example: giving everything to the group and to its mission, including your life. Many, many people are in cults where they're giving everything just short of their actual life, and are being drained and exhausted. But when a group goes to that ultimate level, this has to do with the acute, near-schizophrenic kind of paranoia of the leader. For many group members, the leader is God, and if God is saying something, then it must be true. It's devastating for the survivors who were helpless all along to extract the loved one from the group. Law enforcement has its hands tied. We have laws about religious freedom, for example, or other kinds of freedoms.

PEOPLE: How can one spread awareness of the dangers of cult ideology in a way that avoids simply retelling its more sensational associations?

Shaw: There's a problem currently with trust in sources of information, and so many people who are currently involved in groups, such as QAnon and other splinter groups, are only receiving information from very limited sources, and are convinced that any other information is fake news. This is one of the problems we face, and people can easily just decide that they don't trust any information other than from the source that they're getting it from. There's no easy answer, but reliable information that is researched, that is backed up by evidence is available, and anybody who wants to research a group now and learn about its history, all of that information is readily available.

It's much more diffuse, and there are many branches. It's also fed by different groups who seek different aims. We don't quite have the means of fully protecting our citizens from disinformation. It's unfortunate that the internet has become one of the biggest recruiting tools in the history of the planet for actors who are creating cult-like groups.

https://people.com/crime/revisiting-heavens-gate-cult-expert-explains-how-groups-recruit/

Opinion: Before I wrote my dissertation on Heaven's Gate, I was in a cult

I decided to tackle the question, “What makes people in cults do things that those of us on the outside find incomprehensible?”

JANJA LALICH
San Diego union-tribune
MARCH 17, 2022

Lalich is an author, researcher, consultant, professor emerita of sociology at Cal State Chico, and an authority on cults and coercion. She lives in Walnut Creek.

When the Heaven’s Gate deaths occurred in Rancho Santa Fe 25 years ago (for me, they were “induced suicides”), I was in graduate school about to start my dissertation research. Because I knew a lot about the group and had been in contact with former members as well as families of members, my adviser said, “Well, this is it. It fell right in your lap. This can be your dissertation topic.” I was hesitant at first when he added, “And it will be much stronger if you do a comparative study of Heaven’s Gate and the cult you were in.”

“Oh, dear,” I thought to myself, “do I really want to go back there?”

In 1975, when I was 30, I joined a left-wing revolutionary group, thinking I had found a serious organization that would give my life purpose and meaning. But — oh — it was a harsh and restrictive existence. I thought I was devoting myself to changing our country for the better. I gave up everything and went all in.

However, after 10-plus years of 18- to 20-hour days, no privacy, lengthy group criticism sessions and mindless activities meant only to enhance the leader’s reputation, I was worn out and disillusioned. Being in leadership and in the inner circle, I had seen too much. I knew too much. And at some point, I realized I was in a cult and wanted to leave. Fortunately, we all got out — but that’s another story.

For my dissertation, I decided to tackle the question, “What makes people in cults do things that those of us on the outside find incomprehensible?” Comparing the Democratic Workers Party (DWP) and Heaven’s Gate was a daunting task. On one end, you have a kind of New Agey UFO cult whose leaders and members claimed to despise this world, to not be of this world, and to be training and waiting patiently to leave Earth for their “home” — the “Level Above Human.” At the other end, you have a very down-to-earth Marxist-Leninist cult whose members were willing to work hard and fight to change this world. How different could two groups be?

In my research, I first learned that the social milieu of the mid-1970s, when both groups were recruiting, was ripe territory for both: The searching atmosphere of the New Age movement led some to Heaven’s Gate, while the end of the Vietnam War led others looking for a new cause to the DWP.

Then, through meticulous analyses of leadership styles, of documents, of internal behaviors and language, of mechanisms of influence and control, I discovered more commonalities than differences. In Heaven’s Gate, it was called “this” and in the DWP it was called “that” — but the purpose and effect were the same: coordinated indoctrination leading to blind loyalty and constant devotion. Indeed, cults are a variation on a theme — recruit, train, retain, isolate, change. Voilà, a true believer, living in a closed reality with an illusion of choice and an altered free will — what I call “bounded choice.”

Fortunately, the Democratic Workers Party ended in dissolution and not extinction. The story of Heaven’s Gate is a sad one that we can all learn from. Idealistic individuals, good decent women and men, trapped in an impossible dream, culminating in the largest “mass suicide” on U.S. soil.

The lessons: In these turbulent times, cults are having a heyday of recruitment. Don’t jump in too fast. Take your time before you take the leap. Don’t be pressured to act now. Do your research. Pretend you’re buying a car. You would never buy the first car you look at, right? Trust your gut if something doesn’t feel right.

If I’ve learned anything over the past 35 years of studying these groups and working with survivors and families — it’s that there are no gurus.

This essay is in the print edition of The San Diego Union-Tribune on March 18, 2022, with the headline, What makes cults — like the one I was in — appealing?

 

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/commentary/story/2022-03-17/heavens-gate-cults-california

CultNEWS101 Articles: 3/17/2022 (Heaven's Gate, Documentary, Podcast, NXIVM, Self Help, Kelly Thiel, Baptiste Yoga)

 

Heaven's Gate, Documentary, Podcast, NXIVM, Self Help, Kelly Thiel, Baptiste Yoga

The Oregonian/OregonLive: Oregon-connected Heaven’s Gate UFO cult explored in ‘20/20′ special hosted by Diane Sawyer

"The bizarre-but-true story of the Heaven’s Gate cult, a group that came to a tragic end when members took their lives in a mass suicide event in 1997, is again explored in “The Cult Next Door: The Mystery and Madness of Heaven’s Gate,” a “20/20″ special airing March 11 (and after).

The ABC special isn’t the first one to take a look at the saga of what was known as the UFO Cult. In 2021, HBO aired “Heaven’s Gate: The Cult of Cults,” which chronicled how cult leaders Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles first gained national attention. In 1975, Applewhite and Nettles held a community meeting in Waldport, on the Oregon coast, in an attempt to recruit new members.

When about 20 people were reported missing after the meeting, the question of what happened to them became national news. And that was just the beginning of what turned into a ghastly story that involved members of the group engaging in castration, sharing a love of “Star Trek,” and ultimately dying by suicide -- all wearing Nike sneakers -- because they thought a UFO would take them to a next level of existence.

IndoctriNation Show: "Self Help Hostage w/ Kelly Thiel" 

In this intimate and bravely vulnerable conversation, Kelly shares insight into her time in NXIVM. She outlines the dangerous and traumatic "Exploration of Meaning" sessions she witnessed and experienced herself as a member of the "Executive Success Program".  Throughout the conversation, Rachel gives Kelly the opportunity to reexamine her impressions of the NXIVM community in retrospect.

IndoctriNation Show: Guests, Melissa, Rachel & Chelle share their experience as part of Baptiste Yoga.

Each of them discusses their own experiences.  

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery

CultEducationEvents.com

CultMediation.com   

Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.

CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.

CultNEWS101.com news, links, resources.

Facebook

Flipboard

Twitter

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Cults101.org resources about cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations and related topics.

Selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not mean that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly agree with the content. We provide information from many points of view in order to promote dialogue.

Please forward articles that you think we should add to cultintervention@gmail.com.

Oregon-connected Heaven’s Gate UFO cult explored in ‘20/20′ special hosted by Diane Sawyer

"The Cult Next Door: The Mystery and Madness of Heaven's Gate"

Cult leader Marshall Applewhite, whose group is the subject of "The Cult Next Door: The Mystery and Madness of Heaven's Gate," a "20/20" special that airs Friday, March 11. (Screenshot/YouTube)



Kristi Turnquist

The Oregonian/OregonLive

March 03, 2022

The bizarre-but-true story of the Heaven’s Gate cult, a group that came to a tragic end when members took their lives in a mass suicide event in 1997, is again explored in “The Cult Next Door: The Mystery and Madness of Heaven’s Gate,” a “20/20″ special airing March 11.

The ABC special isn’t the first one to take a look at the saga of what was known as the UFO Cult. In 2021, HBO aired “Heaven’s Gate: The Cult of Cults,” which chronicled how cult leaders Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles first gained national attention. In 1975, Applewhite and Nettles held a community meeting in Waldport, on the Oregon coast, in an attempt to recruit new members.

When about 20 people were reported missing after the meeting, the question of what happened to them became national news. And that was just the beginning of what turned into a ghastly story that involved members of the group engaging in castration, sharing a love of “Star Trek,” and ultimately dying by suicide -- all wearing Nike sneakers -- because they thought a UFO would take them to a next level of existence.

Stunning All-New Event: ‘The Cult Next Door: The Mystery and Madness of Heaven’s Gate.’

The extraordinary @DianeSawyer special premieres Friday, March 11th at 9/8c on @ABC. Stream on @Hulu. https://t.co/tGv31p704k pic.twitter.com/SfvRzWbklZ

— 20/20 (@ABC2020) March 3, 2022

According to the ABC News release, ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer hosts the two-hour “20/20″ special, “The Cult Next Door,” which promises to investigate the leaders of the cult, their backgrounds, and how they gained the loyalty of followers.

As the release says, in 1997 Sawyer interviewed Rio DiAngelo, a member of the group who had left it before the mass suicide. In the special, Sawyer again interviews DiAngelo. The program will also feature previously unseen tapes, along with audio recordings, interviews with former members of the cult, survivors of those who died, and authorities who worked on the case.
-- Kristi Turnquist

https://www.oregonlive.com/entertainment/2022/03/oregon-connected-heavens-gate-ufo-cult-explored-in-2020-special-hosted-by-diane-sawyer.html

CultNEWS101 Articles: 2/26/2022 (Heaven's Gate, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Charisma)

Heaven's Gate, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Charisma

KCRW: How '60s and '70s America gave rise to cult leaders

" ... KCRW's Jonathan Bastian talks with Ben Zeller, Associate Professor of Religion at Lake Forest College and author of "Heaven's Gate: America's UFO Religion," about the characteristics of cults and cult leaders and their utopian impulses to make a better world."

The Indian Express: When India changed the course of The Beatles' lives forever

A new documentary, The Beatles and India, directed by Ajoy Bose and Peter Compton, to have its India premiere at the Kolkata International Film Festival, traces the time Beatles came to India and the cultural assimilation that followed.

It was hard to miss women swooning, screaming, chasing them down the streets, and the monstrous sums of money that surrounded The Beatles in the '60s, both in the UK and the Western world. Amid the pandemonium, the four Liverpudlians with mop tops, kingpins of modern pop, turned East for peace. And almost 50 years ago, they arrived at the foot of the Himalayas, in Rishikesh, where, in the February of 1968, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram welcomed its most celebrated visitors.

PsyPost: Charismatic people with psychopathic tendencies are more likely to evade detection and punishment

"Charisma might be one factor that differentiates so-called "successful" psychopaths from their unsuccessful counterparts, according to new research published in the Journal of Research in Personality.

"Successful psychopathy is a highly controversial subject because psychopathic personality traits are related to concepts such as interpersonal manipulation, antisocial behavior, and criminality — which are hardly thought to be characteristic of success," said study author Emma-Clementine O. Welsh, a PhD student at The State University of New York at Binghamton.

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery

CultEducationEvents.com

CultMediation.com   

Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.

CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.

CultNEWS101.com news, links, resources.

Facebook

Flipboard

Twitter

Instagram

Cults101.org resources about cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations and related topics.

Selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not mean that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly agree with the content. We provide information from many points of view in order to promote dialogue.

Please forward articles that you think we should add to cultintervention@gmail.com.

Off the Beaten Trail: Colorado connections to infamous Heaven’s Gate Cult

Tim Mosier

Trail Gazette 

April 3, 2021

The story of the Heaven’s Gate cult has been told multiple times since San Diego police responded to an anonymous tip and found the lifeless bodies of 39 men and women from ranging from ages 26-72. It was March 26, 1997 when the largest mass suicide on United States soil took place, but the story of Heaven’s Gate begins over two decades prior in small-town Oregon.

The town of Waldport had a population of roughly 987 people in 1975 when the two people who would later go on to start the Heaven’s Gate cult held one of their first recruitment meetings at the town’s Bayshore Inn. That night, 25-35 residents seemingly went missing, attracting nation-wide attention.

“Those who disappeared are said to have given away their property to friends and relatives and renounced their families after attending meetings conducted by a man and a woman in Waldport,” an Oct. 6,1975 New York Times article reported.

After months of speculation and rumors circulating through the town about what had happened, a member of the cult returned to Waldport on Dec. 7.

One of the men who attended the meeting and left town the same night with the leaders known as ‘The Two,’ Robert Rubin, told the Newport News-Times that 34 people were recruited from the ‘poorly publicized’ meeting, many of whom left immediately.

What or who could cause than many grown adult to abandon their lives after a few hours of conversation?

Marshall ‘Herff’ Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles were the birth names of the leaders known as ‘The Two.’

Applewhite was the homosexual son of a Protestant minister born in Spur, Texas. He graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder in 1969 with a Master of Music degree. While there, he played starring roles in two musicals, ”Oklahoma!” and ”South Pacific.”

After his father died in 1971, Applewhite was hospitalized for severe depression.  It was around that time he met Nettles, a nurse who was fascinated with mysticism and the divine. The two became close friends saying they felt they had met in a past life and that the meeting of their current ‘vehicles’ (bodies) was foretold to Nettles by extraterrestrial beings.

Nettles was married with two children when she met Applewhite,  but soon both broke off contact with their families and began traveling around the west recruiting kindred spirits. During their time wandering the west, the group stayed at Bonny Reservoir in Colorado near the Kansas border.

The two initially changed their names to Bo and Peep, but the connection between those names and a following of sheep caused them to reconsider. Due to the couples’ affection for musical theatre, they changed their name Do and Ti, a reference to the song in The Sound of Music.

What made their far-out beliefs easier to swallow for the ones they recruited was the interweaving of fundamental Christian beliefs and new age fascinations with space travel. While the beliefs of the group changed throughout its long existence, they famously said the heavens existed among the stars and that with a powerful enough telescope, one could see the Christian idea of God.

The group’s early beliefs were more focus around the idea of metamorphosis and members believed that as the impending apocalypse approached, they would be physically transformed into a more alien-like being fit for space travel. They believed this process was travelling to the ‘Next Level,’ both consciously and physically.

In 1985, Nettles died after a long battle with liver cancer. The death of her physical body threw a wrench in the group’s beliefs that the transformation was as much physical as it was spiritual.

Applewhite told followers that she had gone to the Next Level because she had ‘too much energy to remain on Earth.’

After Nettles’ death, he again became severely depressed and, for the first time ever, allowed Heaven’s Gate members to return to their families and reassess their commitment to the group’s beliefs.

His attempt to explain her death in the terms of the group’s doctrine was successful, preventing the departure of all but one member. Applewhite would go on to say that Nettles left the rest behind because they still had more to learn and that she occupied a higher spiritual role than he and the others.

It was after Nettles’ death that the group’s core beliefs began to revolve around a spiritual ascension in which they would leave their bodies behind and be reborn among higher life forms.

The group’s recruiting numbers shrank as they became increasingly focused on the suppression of sexual desire, going so far as to have one of the members who had formally been a nurse attempt to castrate a willing fellow member. After that grotesque failure the group found a surgeon in Mexico who performed the procedure on Applewhite and seven other members.

In Applewhite’s opinion, sexuality was one of the most powerful forces that bound humans to their bodies and hindered their efforts to evolve to the Next Level. He believed and taught that Next Level beings had no reproductive organs and that Lucifer was responsible for genders.

In the late ’90s, with Applewhite’s failing health and the groups continuing troubles recruiting a new generation, it was clear that something was coming to a head.  Over the course of the group’s existence, several hundred people joined and left, but by 1993 the group’s numbers had dropped below 50 and it was clear something needed to change.

Later that year, according to the group’s website, they ”took a much more overt step toward the conclusion of our task.” They published a $30,000 advertisement in USA Today that year that was titled ‘U.F.O. Cult Resurfaces with Final Offer,’ along with advertisements in other publications that proclaimed, ‘Last Chance to Advance Beyond Human.’

After trying to build membership for a few years, news of the coming Hale-Bopp comet presented Applewhite the grand theatrical conclusion he was looking for. The group would shed their mortal coils and have their spirits abducted by the comet as it passed by earth.

To further the Hale-Bopp mythology, in January of 1997, doctored photos surfaced that were manipulated to show an unknown object trailing the comet. Applewhite considered this object the alien space ship sent to take him and the rest of Heaven’s Gate home.

It is believed that the suicides took place in three stages, over three days, according to the coroner who worked the case, Dr. Brian Blackbourne. Thanks to notes left in the pockets of the deceased, authorities had a pretty good idea of how it happened.

“Basically it just said, ‘Take the little package of pudding or applesauce, and eat a couple of tablespoons to make some room to pour the medicine in, stir it up, and then eat it fairly quickly. Drink the vodka beverage. Lay back and relax,'” Blackbourne said.

Plastic bags found near the trash indicate that suffocation may have been used to speed the process. Packed flight bags or suitcases stood at the foot of many mattresses, and victims often carried $5 bills and quarters.

The money found was a reference to Mark Twain’s short story, ‘Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven.’ In the story, when the Captain sets off into outer space he takes along a passport and money for his travel. One line reads, “The fare to get to heaven on the tail of a comet was $5.75.”

Many of the members recorded ‘exit interviews’ in the months and weeks leading up to the suicides. By all accounts they seemed happy and of sound mind. They mailed those interviews to friends and family member along with notes, many of which began, “By the time this letter is being read, we will all have shed our containers.”

What might be considered the most interesting or most shocking aspect of the entire Heaven’s Gate sage is how the members of the cult were not all what people would consider ‘wandering hippies,’ or transients.  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.’

One recruit was John Craig, a respected Republican running for the Colorado House of Representatives when he joined in 1975. He walked out on his wife and six children to follow Applewhite and Nettles.

To his banker, R. W. Turner Jr., Craig ”was a perfect cowboy, always dressed like the Marlboro man, pressed Levis, Stetson hat.’

One hotel owner who knew Craig said of the man who almost won a seat in the state legislature in 1970, “’He was a totally normal guy until he became a moonie. That’s what people used to say — that he was going to the moon.”

Two months after he left, Craig invited his daughter, Cathy Murphy, who was then a sophomore at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, to come to the Denver Y.W.C.A. to attend a meeting of the group, then called Human Individual Metamorphosis.

“Dad didn’t appear to be a zombie at all,”Murphy said. “I was looking for drug-induced brainwashing. But he was very articulate, very animated. He was my dad.”

Of the 39 that showed the ultimate dedication to Applewhite and his teachings, Craig was one of six with ties to Colorado.

Ladonna Brugato was a 40-year-old computer consultant who lived in Englewood before joining the cult in 1993. Lucy Eva Pesho was a 63-year-old computer trainer from Pueblo who joined Heaven’s Gate in the late ‘70s. Her family said the last time they received communication from her was 1989.

Jacqueline Leonard was a medical assistant from Littleton who was living in Des Moines with her husband and three children when she was enticed to leave her family in the ‘70s. She was 71-years-old when she died.

Gary Jordan St. Louis was a computer programmer who had followed Applewhite and Nettles since the early days of the cult. He disappeared with them in 1975, not resurfacing until 1989. He struggled for three years to get back into society before he returned, this time taking his half sister Dana Tracey Abreo with him.

Of all the ghouls and goblins that go bump in the night, the story of John Craig might be the most terrifying take away from the entire tragic ordeal. The idea that someone you know or love, someone successful and popular, someone with friends and family, could have the foundations of their personality warped and washed overnight.

Who is to say that any of us are truly above that level of susceptibility? While many of us believe there is no way we could ever be so foolish, so manipulated, the catch is, you will never know for sure. Maybe you just haven’t heard the right pitch yet.

In the 24 years since that tragic day in San Diego, technology has advanced exponentially and the influence of the internet has never been stronger. It is hard to look at the extreme division being created in our country over the last five years and not wonder if some of Applewhite and Nettles’ techniques aren’t being used on social media.

The placement of the proper words and images related to your beliefs is broken down into an equation and you are directly targeted to be influenced. Applewhite and Nettles had flyers and a few hours in a conference room and look what they accomplished.

Imagine what kind of manipulation can and has taken place in the Facebook age. Are we any more advanced in recognizing and preventing this kind of manipulation than the 39 people who fell asleep for the last time 24 years ago?

Just before the mass suicide, the Heaven’s Gate’s website released this 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.”

Tim Mosier

https://www.eptrail.com/2021/04/03/off-the-beaten-trail-colorado-connections-to-infamous-heavens-gate-cult-2/

Heaven’s Gate: The Cult of Cults

HBO Max
November 24, 2020

“Heaven’s Gate: The Cult of Cults” is a thorough examination of the infamous UFO cult through the eyes of its former members and loved ones. What started in 1975 with the disappearance of 20 people from a small town in Oregon ended in 1997 with the largest suicide on US soil and changed the face of modern new age religion forever. This four-part docuseries uses never-before-seen footage and first-person accounts to explore the infamous UFO cult that shocked the nation with their out-of-this-world beliefs."

CultNEWS101 Articles: 10/26/2020

Astrology, Tarot, QAnon, Heaven's Gate

Cults in the Occulture: Astrology

" ... After two years of research I found that astrology is horrible as a predictive tool and totally unreliable reference as to a person's character. Astrologers who know how to read a chart with its thousands of relational aspects can easily get most customers to agree with a reading. It comes down to an influence game. Astrology can effect national decisions. I point to how in 1948 the New Indian government had to consult an astrologer for the auspicious moment when to sign their declarations of independence from Great Britain. After Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981, his wife Nancy consulted a celebrity astrology to names dates and times when the president could safely travel, thus causing havoc and unnecessary delays among White House staff decisions."

The Conversation: Facebook, YouTube moves against QAnon are only a first step in the battle against dangerous conspiracy theories

" ... Until this year, most people had never heard of QAnon. But over the course of 2020, the fringe movement has gained widespread traction domestically in the United States and internationally — including a number of Republican politicians who openly campaigned as Q supporters.

I have been researching QAnon for more than two years and its recent evolution has shocked even me.

What most people don't realize is that QAnon in July and August was a different movement than what QAnon has become in October. I have never seen a movement evolve or radicalize as fast as QAnon — and it's happening at a time when the socio-political environment globally is much different now than it was in the summer.

All of these factors came into play when Facebook decided to take action against "militarized social movements and QAnon."

In the weeks leading up to the ban, I had seen a trend in more violent content on Facebook, especially with the circulation of memes and videos promoting "vehicle ramming attacks" with the slogan "all lives splatter" and other racist messages against Black people.

In explaining its ban, Facebook noted while it had 'removed QAnon content that celebrates and supports violence, we've seen other QAnon content tied to different forms of real world harm, including recent claims that the (U.S.) West Coast wildfires were started by certain groups, which diverted attention of local officials from fighting the fires and protecting the public.'"

WBUR: Bonding or Brainwashing? How Ap Girls Trip To The Mountains — And QAnon — Tore One Family Apart

"Randi-Lynn thought she was going on a relaxing family vacation to the mountains. Just a few days later, she was hiding in a bathroom and frantically posting on Reddit, asking for help. The headline of her post? 'I think I was brought on a girls trip to be brainwashed.'"

Vice: The 1990s Cult 'Heaven's Gate' Has Four Remaining Followers - We Spoke to Them

"Heaven's Gate hit just about every bullet point on the cult checklist.

Followers believed that Earth would be "recycled" by the year 2027, and that their salvation was an alien spacecraft travelling closely behind the Hale-Bopp comet, which would transport them to an extraterrestrial "Kingdom of Heaven". Naturally, they had a self-appointed messiah: the former music teacher Marshall Applewhite, who co-founded Heaven's Gate in 1975 with a fellow Texan, a nurse named Bonnie Nettles.

In 1997, the year the Hale-Bopp came closest to Earth, 39 Heaven's Gate members died by suicide in a San Diego mansion that doubled as the cult's headquarters. The suicides are believed to have taken place over the course of three days, with each member discovered wearing identical black outfits, box-fresh Nike Decades and arm bands reading, "Heaven's Gate Away Team". In the months that followed, at least three former members also died by suicide.

Despite this tragic end, there are still people out there interested in joining Heaven's Gate. Luckily for them, the cult's original website is still online – and among all the impassioned literature about the group's beliefs, there's something else prospective members will be happy to find: an email address.

I wondered who, in 2020, would be maintaining the email address for a cult whose members are all famously dead. So I emailed it to find out, asking how many members – if any – are left.

"None," came the reply. "The Group came to an end in 1997. There are no members or anything to join."

So who was I speaking to? "We joined at the beginning, in 1975, and have been with them for 45 years. There are us two here in Arizona and a couple more around the country.''

It turns out these four Americans were instructed to tend to the website in the mid-1990s and have been doing so ever since, replying to emails and taking care of daily legal and archiving issues in the downtime from their regular jobs.

They also all still believe in the group's ideology, and seem keen to promote it, sending me a link to a Vimeo page containing the series Beyond Human – hours upon hours of wide-eyed leader Applewhite and other Heaven's Gate members discussing their beliefs. The last few videos are just Applewhite warning people to save themselves from a soon-to-be-recycled planet.

According to the four remaining followers, people across the globe email asking to join the cult every day. "We have told four today alone that they can't join, because the group ended in 1997," they explained in an email. "We average about five or so a day that want to join.''

The Heaven's Gate subreddit, composed of over 600 members, has also fielded questions from people looking to join the group. One Redditor I spoke to said that the appeal of Heaven's Gate, even post-1997, is "that there are many young people out there, myself included, who are looking for their place in the world, a place to fit in.''

While the group might have been welcoming – so long as you were 18 or over and didn't mind abandoning your entire family and all your earthly possessions – the belief system would likely have been difficult for most to get on board with."

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