Heaven’s Gate

Heaven’s Gate, new religious movement founded in the United States in the 1970s that combined eschatological ideas with a belief in unidentified flying objects. It was one of many new religious movements that developed following the 1960s counterculture movement in the United States as people sought new religious understandings outside of mainstream religion. Under a variety of names over the years—including Human Individual Metamorphosis, Bo and Peep, and Total Overcomers Anonymous—the group advocated extreme self-renunciation to the point of castration. It burst into public consciousness following the mass suicide of 39 of its members in a suburb of San Diego, California, in March 1997.

Formation

Founders Marshall H. Applewhite (1931–1997) and Bonnie Nettles (1927–1985) met in 1972 and soon became convinced that they were the two “endtime” witnesses mentioned in Revelation 11 and called themselves “the Two.” One of the core beliefs of Heaven’s Gate was that Applewhite and Nettles had minds capable of channeling extraterrestrials, and they preached that the subsequent stage of human evolution—called the Next Level, to which humans would soon transition—would be on an alien spacecraft. The pair began referring to themselves as Guinea and Pig, a reflection of their self-perception of being part of an extraterrestrial experiment. They later called themselves Bo and Peep—herders of a flock—before eventually settling on Ti (Nettles) and Do (Applewhite), names inspired by the seventh and first (also eighth) notes of the Western solfège. In 1975 they held gatherings in California and Oregon that attracted their initial followers. Those who attached themselves to “the Two” dropped out of society and prepared for the “transition” to a new life on a spaceship. At its peak in 1975 the group had recruited about 200 followers.

Middle years

By the end of 1975, however, the movement had begun to splinter. Applewhite and Nettles prophesied, following Revelation 11, that they would be martyred and resurrected, an event they called the Demonstration. When that, and the transition to the Next Level, did not occur, the group became more insular and disjointed, and the core group eventually relocated to Texas as followers dwindled sharply. In 1976 Nettles announced that the group would not accept any new members. In Texas they lived a quiet communal existence, following the concept of a classroom but operating more like a boot camp, practicing disciplines that they believed would prepare them for the eventual movement to a “higher level” of existence. Adherents believed they were undergoing grueling preparation for life aboard a spaceship on the Next Level.

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A shift in the community’s beliefs occurred in 1985 when Nettles died from liver cancer and Applewhite took over as the sole leader. Until that point the group had believed that reaching the Next Level would occur in one’s physical body. Nettles’s death prompted a reconfiguration of some aspects of the theology. Applewhite slowly turned the group’s thinking toward a stronger focus on satanic forces working against them and the concept that human civilization was imminently going to be recycled. Members increasingly discussed denial of sexuality to the point of castration, which some members undertook. A small group remained committed, and even attempted to revive outreach efforts in 1988, but the group was largely isolated and its numbers slowly dwindled, reaching 26 followers by 1993.

They had few contacts with outsiders until 1994, when their expectation of the imminent transition was again heightened, and they began a new round of proselytization. They took to the road in a series of lectures across the United States. Some members of Heaven’s Gate in the 1990s formed a website-design business, called Higher Source, by which they supported themselves and the group. They also tried to capitalize on the burgeoning World Wide Web to spread their message by posting on message boards and creating a website. The group’s adoption of the then-novel Internet as a medium for proselytization received significant media attention in the wake of its members’ mass suicide.

Mass suicide

Applewhite and his followers divested themselves of most of their possessions and began a pilgrimage that led them to California, where they settled in 1996 in Rancho Santa Fe, an affluent suburb of San Diego. Early in 1997 a rumor circulated among the New Age and UFO communities that an artificial object, or spaceship, was following the recently discovered Comet Hale-Bopp, which would reach its closest point to Earth on March 22, 1997—a week prior to Easter. Applewhite believed that Hale-Bopp was a sign that a UFO was coming to take Heaven’s Gate members, at long last, to the Next Level, as explained by a post on the Heaven’s Gate website:

Whether Hale-Bopp has a “companion” or not is irrelevant from our perspective. However, its arrival is joyously very significant to us at “Heaven’s Gate.” The joy is that our Older Member in the Evolutionary Level Above Human (the “Kingdom of Heaven”) has made it clear to us that Hale-Bopp’s approach is the “marker” we’ve been waiting for—the time for the arrival of the spacecraft from the Level Above Human to take us home to “Their World”—in the literal Heavens. 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.

Discussions of suicide had circulated in the group for some years, but on March 22, with the start of Holy Week and the comet’s approach, the group began the process of death by suicide. Prior to the event, the members of the group made videos explaining their individual reasons for their chosen path. As the comet approached, 39 members of Heaven’s Gate took poison in three waves of 15, 15, and 9 in the belief that the spaceship would arrive to take them to a better place. They ingested a concoction of phenobarbital, vodka, and applesauce, after which they placed bags over their heads that caused them to die by asphyxiation. Applewhite and his followers were discovered by authorities on March 26 lying on their backs and covered by purple shrouds. They wore black trousers and sneakers and had packed suitcases by their sides, as if ready for a trip. In the years following, three more members of Heaven’s Gate died by suicide. These deaths effectively ended the group; however, Heaven’s Gate’s website, explaining the group’s beliefs, remains accessible.

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