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Heaven’s Gate: 39 bodies were found. America’s Book of Secrets: Deadly Cults s2e6, History 2013
I must admit that I am here again. That I am here again saying exactly the same thing ... The mind that was in Jesus – what? – that mind is in me. Marshall Applewhite
And unless you hate everything of this world – your sister, your mother, your brother – everything of this world, you will not know the Kingdom of Heaven. You have to graft to me. You have to cling to me. I will take you to my Father’s house. Marshall Applewhite
You have to trust me. Marshall Applewhite
Earlier this year the bodies of thirty-nine men and women were found in this house in San Diego: they were members of the Heaven’s Gate cult. Inside Story: Heaven’s Gate, 2014
The Heaven’s Gate cult was started over twenty years ago by a music teacher Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles a nurse. ibid.
A rigorous and separate way of life was established. ibid.
The only way of entering ‘Do’s’ promised land was to stay within the confines of the group. ibid.
Early this year the Hale-Bopp comet made its appearance in the sky. ‘Do’ took this as the long awaited sign from ‘T’ that the time had finally come to evacuate planet Earth. ibid.
Eight of the men including ‘Do’ had been castrated. ibid.
They were united in the belief that by following this man they could overcome death. Instead they ended their lives in a mass suicide that stunned the world. Heaven’s Gate: The Definitive Story, 2007
It was the largest mass suicide ever on American soil. Detectives soon discovered that the thirty-nine men were 18 men and 21 women, most of them well past their twenties. ibid.
A closer examination of the house revealed more and more bizarre findings. ibid.
The two misfits [Applewhite & Nettles] from Texas who now said they were Jesus and God the Father set off to find themselves some disciples. ibid.
Most cults demand their members cut off ties to their families. Heaven’s Gate took that to an extreme. ibid.
Inside the Heaven’s Gate group there was a greater threat to its existence than a few defecting members: in 1985 Bonnie Lou Nettles died of cancer. To a group that believed it was overcoming death this was devastating ... Bonnie’s death set in motion a chain of events that years later would lead to tragedy. ibid.
Celibacy has always been the rule. But many of the male disciples were deciding to take the level of their commitment and celibacy one irreversible step further. ibid.
After all these years of preparation where was the spacecraft that was going to take them to the next level? ibid.
But Hale-Bopp would only be in the skies for a short time. Applewhite convinced his followers that this was what they had been waiting for all these years. To seize the moment, to ascend to the next level above human, they would have to, in their words, exit their vehicles. ibid.
Two of those survivors still decided to follow their comrades. ibid.
Heaven’s Gate is a destructive doomsday cult ... 21 women and 18 men voluntarily committed suicide in three groups on three successive days starting on 23rd March 1997. Most were in their 40s; the rest covered an age range of 26 to 72. Two months later two additional members, Charles Humphrey and Wayne Cooke, attempted suicide in a hotel room a few miles from the Rancho Santa Fe mansion: Cooke succeeded. Humphrey tried again in the Arizona desert during February 1998 and was successful.
Heaven’s Gate was the latest of three organizations founded by Marshall Herff Applewhite and Bonnie Ti Lu Trusdale Nettles aka The Two. The first was Human Individual Metamorphosis (HIM) which they organized in 1975. They traveled to the Colorado Desert to wait for the arrival of a UFO. None came. Bonnie Nettles died of cancer in 1985. Applewhite organized a new group called Total Overcomers Anonymous or TOA in 1993. They placed an ad in USA Today, announcing that the Earth’s present civilization was about to be recycled. Applewhite originally went by the nickname Bo, and more recently was called Do (pronounced Doe). Marshall moved to San Diego County California with the group, now renamed Heaven’s Gate, and lived on to become one of the 39 suicides. Religious Tolerance online article, Heaven’s Gate
The cult members committed suicide over a few days in late March 1997. They died in shifts, with some members helping others take a lethal cocktail of phenobarbital and vodka before downing their own doses of the fatal mixture. Police found an eerily placid and orderly scene on March 26th.
Heaven’s Gate members believed that Hale-Bopp, an unusually bright comet, was the sign that they were supposed to shed their earthly bodies (or containers) and join a spacecraft traveling behind the comet that would take them to a higher plane of existence. CNN online article ‘One Year Later: Heaven’s Gate Suicide Leaves Only Faint Trail’
Thirty-nine neatly arranged corpses. The final act of devotion to a charismatic leader named Marshall Applewhite. And the suicide cult he created known as Heaven’s Gate. Ancient Aliens s3e12: Aliens and Deadly Cults, History 2011
After further visions, Applewhite’s story evolved. ibid.
They joined together in the belief that by following this man they could overcome death. Instead they ended their lives in a mass suicide that stunned the nation. Heaven’s Gate: Cult Suicide, PBS 2015
The biggest mass suicide ever on American soil. ibid.
So these two misfits from Texas who now said they were Jesus and God the Father set off to find disciples. ibid.
Celibacy one inescapable step further. ibid.
39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult committed suicide in Rancho Santa Fe California in 1997. UFO Files s3e6: UFO Cults, History 2006
Marshall Applewhite, the leader of the Heaven’s Gate cult, told his followers there was a UFO in the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet. ibid.
They turned their New Age and Christian ideologies into a business and went searching for followers. ibid.
He [Marshall] asked the men to join him in castration. ibid.
‘Your only chance to survive is to leave with us.’ People Magazine Investigates: Heaven’s Gate, Applewhite, Discovery 2019
‘We’ve been away and now we’re going back.’ ibid.
On March 26 1997 law enforcement discovered 39 decomposing bodies in a San Diego California mansion. Among the 39 bodies was cult leader Marshall Herff Applewhite, known as ‘Do’ to his devotees, he convinced them that death was merely a portal. ibid.
‘But there was no spacecraft that came.’ ibid. devotee
t went from one body to possibly ten. It went from male to female … The middle of the night and I remember standing outside that door looking in, and it’s like looking into a black hole … This is like descending into hell or something. Deadly Cults s2e4: Heaven’s Gate, rozzer
Planet Earth. About to be recycled. Your only chance to evacuate is to leave with us. ibid. Applewhite the guru
We came from distant space and we’re about to return. ibid.
39 to beam up. Thank you. ibid. victim’s farewell message