The Religious Movements Homepage: Heaven's Gate

History

The group that ended as "Heaven's Gate" was known by various names over the twenty-two years of its existence. In the early years, at least, the group did not give itself a name. Hence, several of its names were given to it by outsiders. Sociologist Robert Balch, who studied the group during its early life, referred to them as the "Bo and Peep UFO Cult." Picking up on a key teaching of the group, news reporters often referred to the group as HIM ("human individual metamorphosis"). Members referred to themselves simply as "the group," and their leaders as "The Two." In a newspaper advertisement taken out by the group in 1994, they called themselves "Total Overcomers Anonymous." "Heaven's Gate," the name of their Web site, is apparently the name they settled on near the end of the life of the group.

Marshall Herff Applewhite (aka Bo and Do) was born in 1931, the son of a Presbyterian minister in Spur, Texas. Bonnie Lu Nettles (aka Peep and Ti was born in 1927, though her birthplace is unknown. In 1952, Applewhite earned a B.A. at Austin College, and studied briefly at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia before dropping out to pursue a career in music. He served as music director at the First Presbyterian Church in Gastonia, N.C. before moving to Houston. In Houston he pursued a career in the performing arts and became a professor of music at St. Thomas University. Nettles was a nurse when they met in Houston in 1972. Little is know about her background other than knowledge of her interest in metaphysical studies. She was a member of the local Theosophical Society and participated in channeling. She apparently introduced Applewhite to the world of metaphysical studies.

Applewhite and Nettles met after he had been dismissed from St. Thomas University as the result of a scandal involving a male student. The dismissal plunged Applewhite into depression and bitterness. Balch (1995: 147) reports that Applewhite had long "vacillated between homosexual and heterosexual identities, never feeling comfortable with either." In Nettles, Applewhite found a "platonic helper" who did not threaten his sexual identity. Gradually isolating themselves, they cut off contact with others. During this period, reports Balch (1995: 142), they became "absorbed in a private world of vision, dreams, and paranormal experiences that included contacts with space beings who urged them to abandon their worldly pursuits."

The Two left Houston in 1973 and traveled for some months, ending up in a campground near the coast in southern Oregon. Here, Applewhite claimed to have a revelation that brought together the pieces of their metaphysical quest. He and Nettles were the two prophets of the eleventh chapter of the Book of Revelations. After 1,260 days of bearing witness to the truth, their enemies would kill them. This event would be followed by their ascension to heaven in a cloud. The cloud, he believed, was a spacecraft.

With a belief system that combined elements of Christian scripture, Theosophy and other assorted metaphysical teachings, along with a healthy dose of contemporary folk wisdom about UFOs, the two space-age shepherds set out to preach their gospel. Briefly, they called themselves Guinea and Pig, a seemingly humorous commentary on the implausibility of their message. Later they settled on Bo and Peep, identities that continued to cause critics to question the sincerity of their mission.

Their first success came in Los Angeles where an invitation to speak to a group of metaphysical students produced two dozen converts. Followed by their newly acquired disciples, Bo and Peep headed back up to the coast of Oregon. There the UFO cult began to take shape. In a series of haphazardly organized meetings along the way, they soon claimed 150 followers.

The group that would one day be known as Heaven's Gate first gained national visibility in the fall of 1975, when approximately 30 people mysteriously disappeared after a public lecture about flying saucers in the small beach community of Walport, Oregon. For several weeks, the group was the focus of national media attention. Although little was known about the group, it was during this time period that the concept of "brainwashing" entered popular culture as a way of explaining the involvement of youth in cults and sectarian movements.

The group next headed to Denver, where more people joined. Then, abruptly, Bo and Peep split their followers into small groups with only vague instructions on how to continue their work, and announced that they were "withdrawing into the wilderness" in preparation for "the demonstration" (the resurrection and ascension to heaven that would follow their assassination). Over the next six months, these groups wandered across the country waiting for word from their leaders. The teachings of Bo and Peep were not extensive and in their absence most groups became confused and divided. Some groups continued to try to recruit new followers, but typically they lost more members than they gained. More than half of the two hundred or so members drifted away during the absence of Bo and Peep.

Finally, reports spread that The Two could be reached through a post office box in Gulfport, Mississippi. In the months that followed, from ninety to one hundred of the members reassembled to follow a much better organized and demanding leadership. Apparently, in their exile, Bo and Peep had concluded that among the four billion or so souls on Earth, only the tiny number of loyal recruits that returned to follow them were eligible to move on to the next evolutionary level. After a few recruiting efforts in the Midwest, they took their followers to a remote site in Wyoming where they began a period of intense indoctrination.

They announced that the Heavens had canceled the prophesied "demonstration" because the followers were not ready. Those who wanted to be aboard the heavenly space ship would need to devote more time to disciplined training. Learning to serve was the path to ridding oneself of the ways of this world and of one's earthly body, which came to be known as a "container."

Withdrawn from the broader culture, Bo and Peep proceeded to introduce sweeping teachings that encompassed both worldly behavior and preparation for the next kingdom. The members’ lifestyle became very regimented. Emphasis on group activity was designed to de-emphasize the individual. A vocabulary that played on space-age metaphors came into currency within the increasingly isolated group.

From Wyoming, the group moved to a campsite near Salt Lake City where some members took jobs to meet the financial needs of the group. An apparent inheritance solved the group's financial crisis, and they moved first to Denver and later to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, renting houses in both locations. This nomadic existence, coupled with a rejection of materialism and other things worldly, became major elements of the group's lifestyle.

Prior to moving to the mansion of a financially-troubled businessman in the upscale suburb of Rancho Santa Fe near San Diego, California in 1996, the group spent some time on a forty-acre compound in the mountains near Albuquerque, New Mexico. While they worked on the construction of this sprawling but spartan compound, which they called The Earthship and which was modeled on the group's beliefs about the interior layout of a UFO, they rented office space in a nearby community for their computer business.

When they became interested in computers is uncertain, but, apparently, their study of computers dated back some years, probably stimulated by their interest in the relationship between emerging communication technologies and space travel. Their computer business in Southern California, "Higher Source," specialized in the construction of Web sites. The business has been characterized by the group as state of the art, but it was not a cutting-edge company. Their Web development work was technically up-to-date, but not stunning or dynamic. Media accounts, however, indicate that the success of the group's Web efforts provided them with the income needed to rent their large group home in Rancho Santa Fe.

Beliefs, Rituals, and Festivals

Principal Beliefs:

Raised in a traditional Christian family, Applewhite briefly studied for the ministry before electing to pursue a career in music. Nettles had been involved in metaphysical studies and the New Age movement well before the two met. The belief system they invented effectively used traditional Christian teaching as a metaphor or template upon which ideas taken from metaphysical and UFO subcultures were superimposed. According to the teachings of The Two, some two thousand years ago extraterrestrials from the Kingdom of Heaven passed this way to survey their garden Earth and concluded that perhaps it had evolved to a point where it would be useful to send down one being from the "level above." Earthlings, it turned out, were not ready to enter the "Kingdom Level Above Human." The one they sent was killed and Luciferian influences continued to dominate the Earth.

Bo and Peep came to believe that they were extraterrestrials who offered humans yet another chance to move to a higher evolutionary level. Here, the Christian message of sin and salvation was intermingled with elements of Eastern religious traditions in which seekers attempt to break out of a cycle of death and reincarnation.

The Heavenly Kingdom that Bo and Peep came to tell of was not simply spiritual, but literal. The method of transportation to this Kingdom was a spacecraft. The price one paid for a "boarding pass" to this higher level was a disciplined life which would bring about a bodily metamorphosis they likened to the transformation from a caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly. Called “Human Individual Metamorphosis” (HIM), this process would literally transform human physiology. They developed a detailed folk wisdom that confirmed to them that the process was occurring. For example, headaches were interpreted as evidence of "consciousness explosion," and menstrual pains as a sign that the process of androgyny was at work.

The list of behavioral rules appear to have changed during the life of the group, but from the onset celibacy, abstinence from drugs and alcohol, limited and controlled contact with the outside world, and reduction of "human-level" interpersonal attachments within the group were key behavioral requirements. The changing of one's name, cutting of one's hair, and disposal of one's human possessions were acts symbolic of the abandonment of worldly connections.

Initially, Bo and Peep taught that they would be assassinated. After three-and-a-half days their bodies would "ascend up to heaven in a cloud," in fulfillment Revelations 11:12, and the instrument of their ascension would be a flying saucer. This event would be known as "the demonstration."

Early in the life of the group, belief in this teaching as an imminent event was abandoned and the group went "into the wilderness" to better prepare themselves, a process that evolved into a highly disciplined regimentation. Balch characterizes this as a "totalistic" and "encapsulated environment," but also notes that those who did not believe were encouraged to leave the group. How the group's beliefs evolved from this point forward is not well known, but the abundant written record left behind will surely illumine our understanding.

The group apparently developed into a highly cohesive unit. For most of its existence there were few dropouts and few new recruits. Their behavior seems more appropriately characterized as one of internalized self-discipline rather than external regimentation.

It is clear that the group's beliefs changed over the years, but precisely when and how is still being pieced together from the materials they left behind. It is clear that popular-cultural science fiction, especially visions of extraterrestrial life highlighted by movies and television, profoundly influenced the group's worldview. Members were tremendous fans of the Star Trek TV series, as well as The X-Files, both of which featured alien beings in prominent roles.

The methodical, indeed ritual manner in which the group prepared for death is not consistent with the theory that they were leaving this life in desperation, as in the case of the followers of Jim Jones (who committed mass suicide at his command in 1978). Rather, they believed that they were students and that their deaths would allow them to participate in a higher level of human evolution. For them, the coming of Comet Hale-Bopp signaled that their student days were over, and a heavenly space craft was positioned behind the comet waiting to take them to the next level. Do's contention that he would soon die of cancer (a claim which autopsy results proved was spurious) may have primed the group to concerted action lest their second teacher and guide leave without them. In a very real sense, they did not even believe themselves to be committing suicide; they merely saw themselves as abandoning the physical "vehicles" that they regarded as no longer necessary. In the end, the deaths of the Heaven's Gate group were acts of faith; they were graduating to the higher level from which Do and Ti had descended.

Controversies

On March 28, 1997, the Unites States awoke to the news that authorities in Rancho Santa Fe, California had discovered the bodies of 39 "cult members" who had committed suicide. For the next several days this story dominated broadcast journalism and received considerable coverage in print journalism as well. Early reports about the Heaven's Gate suicides were often fragmentary and the information highly misleading and at times mistaken. Thus, for instance, some reports claiming that the majority of members were between 18-24 years old proved to be incorrect, while others were equally mistaken when they stated that the members were all male or that they were branches of the group in other locations who might also be planning, or may have already have committed, suicide. Further, these reports triggered a renewal of warnings of the dangers of cults. The anticultists with their message about the dangers of cults were abundantly present as the mass media struggled to make sense of this seemingly bizarre happening.

There is a great deal to be learned by studying the life and death of this group. Anticultist activists are correct when they note that some cults can be dangerous. Various scholars (e.g. Lewis, 2001: 53-56; Corbett 2000: 317-18; Wessinger 2000: 276ff.) have attempted to list those features which can be considered dangerous and that might lead to violence. However, the popular view that the members of this group were lured into the group by some mysterious methods of mind control seems highly questionable. It is also difficult to conclude that they were so mentally unstable and psychological controlled that they couldn’t leave the group. The stories told by those who had been members do not fit the classic notions of atrocity tales or mindless drones; rather, they indicate that members joined the group willing and accepted its message without any undue pressure.

The extensive records left by the group, plus the good fortune of an able sociologist pursuing research on this group from near the beginning of its life, combine to provide an extraordinary research archive. The members of Heaven’s Gate left a lot of information that spans the full life of the movement from its founding, through growth, and finally extinction.

Internet Links

While Heaven’s Gate no longer has its own web page, a mirror site has been preserved as it was the day the group committed suicide: http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/heavensgate_mirror/index.html. Besides statements of the group’s purpose and mission, this site reproduces the book How and When Heaven’s Gate May Be Entered: http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/heavensgate_mirror/book/book.htm. Heaven’s Gate’s Web site is also mirrored at www.wave.net/upg/gate.

The tragedy of Heaven’s Gate received extensive coverage both in newspapers and on radio and TV stations. While much of this mass media coverage has disappeared from the Web sites of major news sources, one can still get an overview of how this major news story developed and how it succeeded in making headline news for almost 6 weeks. As of February 2005 the print and broadcast archives of several major news media can still be found on the Internet.

Ryan Cook’s web page contains a good bibliography of selected secondary sources: http://home.uchicago.edu/~ryancook/un-hgbib.htm.

CNN’s extended coverage of the Heaven's Gate mass suicide is among the most extensive resource still available on the Web: www.cnn.com/US/9703/28/mass.suicide/links.html.

The New York Times' extensive coverage of Heaven's Gate from March 28 to May 7 provides another excellent source: www.nytimes.com/library/national/suicideindex.html.

PBS News Hour Transcripts of Jim Lehrer interviews with experts, particularly Robert Lifton, reveals that this trusted news source doesn't always provide depth and insight: www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/religion/suicide_3-27.html.

Four major anti-cult groups also contain materials on Heaven’s Gate.

World Films and Rizing Sun Productions have produced a movie entitled "Heaven’s Gate: The Day After. A Documentary about the Heaven’s Gate Cult." For information about it and how to obtain it see www.swmm.com/heavensgate.

For links to other UFO groups see the profiles in the Religious Movements Homepage, http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/ufos.html.

Research Bibliography

Balch, Robert W. (1979). “Two Models of Conversion and Commitment in a UFO Cult.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association, Anaheim, CA.

_____. (1980). “Looking Behind the Scenes in a Religious Cult: Implications for the Study of Conversion.” Sociological Analysis, 41: 137-143.

_____. (1982). “Conversion and Charisma in the Cultic Milieu: The Origins of a New Religion.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of The Association for the Sociology of Religion, Providence, RI.

_____. (1984). “The Social Construction of Reality in Religious Defection: A Conversational Analysis.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association, Seattle, WA.

_____. (1985). “When the Light Goes Out, Darkness Comes: A Study of Defection from a Totalistic Cult.” In Religious Movements: Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers, ed. Rodney Stark, pp. 11-63. New York: Paragon House Publishers.

_____. (1994). “Waiting for the Ships: Disillusionment and the Revitalization of Faith in Bo and Peep's UFO Cult.” Syzygy: Journal of Alternative Religion and Culture, 3:1-2, pp. 95-116. Also published in The Gods Have Landed: New Religions from Other Worlds, ed. James R. Lewis, pp. 137-66. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995.

_____. (1998). “The Evolution of a New Age Cult: From Total Overcomes Anonymous to Death at Heaven’s Gate: A Sociological Analysis.” In Sects, Cults, and Spiritual Communities, ed. William W. Zellner and Marc Petrowsky, pp. 1-25. Westport, CT: Praeger.

_____. (2002). “Making Sense of the Heaven's Gate Suicides.” In Cults, Religion and Violence, ed. David G. Bromley and J. Gordon Melton, pp. 209-228. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Balch, Robert W., and David Taylor. (1977a). "The Metamorphosis of a UFO Cult: A Study of Organizational Change." Paper presented the annual meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association, San Diego, CA.

_____. (1977b). “Seekers and Saucers: The Role of the Cultic Milieu in Joining a UFO Cult.” American Behavioral Scientist, 20 (6): 839-860.

_____. (1978). “On Getting in Tune: Some Reflections on the Process of Making Supernatural Contact.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association, Spokane, WA.)

Balch, Robert W., and David Taylor. (2003). “Heaven’s Gate: Implications for the Study of Religious Commitment.” In Encyclopedic Sourcebook of UFO Religions, ed. James R. Lewis, pp. 211-37. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books.

Brasher, Brenda E. (2001). “The Civic Challenge of Virtual Theology: Heaven’s Gate and Millennial Fever in Cyberspace.” In Religion and Social Policy, ed. Paul D. Nesbitt, pp. 196-209. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.

Chryssides, George D. (2005a). “'Come On Up, and I Will Show Thee’: Heaven’s Gate as a Post Modern Group.” In Controversial New Religions, ed. James R. Lewis and Jesper Aagarrd Petersen, pp. 353-70. New York: Oxford University Press.

_____. (2005b). “Heaven’s Gate: End-Time Prophets in a Post-Modern Era.” Journal of Alternative Spiritualities and New Age Studies 1: 98-109.

Corbett, Julia Mitchell. (2000). Religion in America. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Davis, Winston. (2000). “Heaven’s Gate: A Study of Religious Obedience.” Nova Religio 3: 241-67.

Goerman, Patricia L. (1998). "Heaven’s Gate: A Sociological Perspective." M. A. thesis, Department of Sociology, University of Virginia; archived at http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/heavensgate/Goerman.html.

Heaven’s Gate. (1998). How and When “Heaven’s Gate” (the Door to the Physical Kingdom Level Above Human) May Be Entered: An Anthology of Our Materials. Mill Spring, NC: Wild Flower Press.

Henry, William. (1997). The Keepers of Heaven's Gate: The Millennial Madness. Anchorage, AK: Earthpulse Press.

International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). (1997). “The Suicides in San Diego.” (April); retrieved from www.wsws.org/news/1997/apr1997/hg-a7.shtml, April 23, 2005.

Introvigne, Massimo. (1997). Heaven’s Gate: Il Paradiso non puo attendere. Turin, Italy: Editrici Elle Di Ci.

Geier, Thom. (1998). “Is There Life After Death for Heaven's Gate.” U.S. News & World Report (March 30): 32.

Kaplan, David A. (1997). “Sensing Trouble in the Skies: For Most of Us Hale-Bopp is a Celestial Joy; But for Heaven’s Gate, It Was a Sign That It was the Time to Go.” Newsweek (April 7).

Klebnikov, Peter. (1997). “Time of Troubles: Heaven’s Gate Isn’t the Only One. A Bizarre Doomsday Sect Could Blow Up Again. Here’s Where.” Newsweek (April 7).

Lalich, Janja. (2004). Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults. Berkeley: University of California Press.

_____. (2004). “Using the Bounded Choice Model as an Analytical Tool: A Case Study of Heaven’s Gate.” Cultic Studies Review 3.3; retrieved from www.culticstudiesreview.org/csr_member/mem_articles/lalich_janja_csr0303d.htm, April 15, 2005.

Lewis, James R. (2000). “Heaven’s Gate.” In UFO’s and Popular Culture, ed. James R. Lewis, pp. 146-49. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

_____. (2003). “Legitimizing Suicide: Heaven’s Gate and New Age Ideology.” In UFO Religions, ed. Christopher Partridge, pp. 103-28. London: Routledge.

Lewis, James R., ed. (2001). Odd Gods: New Religions and the Cult Controversy. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

Marty, Martin E. (1997). “Playing with Fire: Looking at Heaven's Gate.” Christian Century 114 (April 16): 379-380

Miller, Patrick D., Jr. (1997). “Life, Death, and the Hale-Bopp Comet.” Theology Today 54: 147-149.

Nelson, Dear. (1997). “To Heaven on a UFO? Heaven's Gate Forces Us to Ask if It's ‘Stupid’ to Die for Our Beliefs.” Christianity Today 41 (My 19): 14-15.

Neuhaus, Richard John. (1997). “Rancho Santa Fe and the Culture of Death.” First Things 74 (June-July): 68-69.

Parker, Mayard, ed. (1997). “Secrets of the Cult.” Newsweek (April 14): 29-37.

Peters, Ted. (1998). “Heaven's Gate and the Theology of Suicide.” Dialog 37 (Winter): 57-66.

_____. (2004). “UFOs, Heaven’s Gate, and the Theology of Suicide.” In Encyclopedic Sourcebook of UFO Religions, ed. James R. Lewis, pp, 239-50. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books.

Ramsland, Katherine. (1997). “Heaven’s Gate;” retrieved from
www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/heavens_gate/1.html, March 26, 2005.

Robinson, B. A. 2001. “Heaven’s Gate: Christian/UFO believers;” retrieved from www.religioustolerance.org/dc_highe.htm, April 15, 2005.

Robinson, Wendy Gale. (1997). “Heaven’s Gate: The End?” Journal of Computer and Mediated Communication; retrieved from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol3/issue3/robinson.html, April 5, 2005.

Rodman, Rosamond. (1999). “Heaven’s Gate: Religious Otherworldliness American Style.” In Bible and the American Myth: A Symposium in the Bible and Constructions of Meaning, ed. Vincent L. Wimbush, pp. 157-73. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.

Tollenaere, Herman de. (1997). “Heaven’s Gate Mass Suicide in California: Some Early Remarks”; retrieved from http://www.stelling.nl/simpos/heavgate.htm, March 25, 2005.

Urban, Hugh B. (2000). “The Devil at Heaven’s Gate: Rethinking the Study of Religion in the Age of Cyber-Space.” Nova Religio 3: 268-302.

Wessinger, Catherine. (2000). How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate. New York: Seven Bridges Press.

Created by Jeffrey K. Hadden

Revised by: John A. Saliba, University of Detroit Mercy, 04/25/2005

Name:	Heaven’s Gate.
Founders:	Marshall Herff Applewhite (aka "Bo" and "Do"; 1931-1997) and Bonnie Lu Nettles (aka "Peep" and "Ti"; 1927-1985)
Year Founded:	1975
Sacred or Revered Texts:	How and When Heaven's Gate May Be Entered, which can still be assessed at various sites listed in the Links below, and numerous written testimonials. It may even be argued that a screenplay the group wrote to spread its message could be classified as a "sacred text."
Size of Group:	Thirty-nine (39). Heaven's Gate came to public attention when they committed mass suicide on March 27, 1997. The mean age of the group members was 46.7, more than twice the average as initially reported. The sex ratio was about equal. All members are believed to have perished. Group membership probably never exceeded two hundred (200) when Balch and Taylor studied them in the 1970s and early 1980s. The turnover was high in the early life of the group; perhaps as many as one thousand (1,000) persons were affiliated at one point or another. After the early period of active recruitment of new members, the defining feature of membership was gradual attrition. In 1994 two members visited sociologist Robert Balch and reported that there were twenty-four (24) members.
Remarks: