Heaven's Gate

by Benjamin E. Zeller

  Several of the prayers speak more centrally to the specific tenets of the members of Heaven’s Gate. Those that address the need to overcome the human condition obviously reflect that part of the group’s ideology. Brnody’s fourth prayer asks for inner strength so as to help in “maintaining non-mammalian behavior of the Evolutionary Level Above Human—around the clock—in order that my soul (mind) will be compatible with and able to occupy a genderless vehicle from the Next Kingdom Level.”98 Other prayers reference space aliens and leaving behind the planet Earth, marking them as very specifically rooted in the theology and practices of Heaven’s Gate. Brnody asks for help in blocking desires related to her life from before she joined the movement, and help in avoiding sensory distractions, speaking to the various other practices of self-control, meditation, and asceticism that characterized the group.

  Other Brnody prayers seem remarkably unusual, even compared to other sources within Heaven’s Gate. For example, Brnody includes as her penultimate prayer a statement more often associated with Ancient Near Eastern sources than the contemporary Christian or New Age movements: “Please let me be an instrument of your righteous fury against what this world has chosen to become whenever (and if) it’s appropriate.”99 Brnody provides no context for this rather odd petitionary prayer, and the term “righteous fury” does not appear in any other written, audio, or video source produced by the group that I have encountered. It does however speak to the way in which Brnody had experienced the world surrounding Heaven’s Gate. It conveys a clear sense that the outside world had rejected her and her movement, and embraced forms of social and spiritual decline against which Applewhite and other members of the group railed.

  Brnody concludes her essay with a brief set of four prayers of thanks-giving, crediting Ti and Do for the gifts they have bestowed onto her, their nurturing of her spirit, and their support. “Thank you for your patience, understanding, and support; for standing by me through all the tough lessons it took to test me by fire, so I may sometime become a well-forged link in the Next Level chain of minds,” she concludes.100 Brnody notes that she ends every day with expressions of thanks to her Older Members, though her statement is too vague to determine if she means the specific examples she provides, or if she varies her forms of thanks-giving. Regardless, the image that emerges of Brnody’s prayer life is one of a member of a new religious movement who expresses through prayers the same sort of hopes and gratitude that one finds in many other religious traditions, albeit clearly embedded within the religious practices, beliefs, and worldview of Heaven’s Gate.

  Turning from Brnody’s prayers to those authored by co-founder Nettles and employed by all members of the group, one finds a quite different prayer. Nettles authored a short booklet titled “Preparing for Service” that she and Applewhite gave to members shortly before she died.101 Ex-member Rkkody transcribed the prayers contained in “Preparing for Service” onto his short-lived website, and I have examined the actual booklets that Mrcody and Srfody preserved.102 The “Preparing for Service” booklet contained a series of aphorisms and prayers that fell into two categories—either meditative prayers or prayers of praise. The meditative prayers took the simple forms of words to be spoken or thought and instructions on how to visualize or meditate in keeping with the prayer, e.g., “Say to yourself, ‘Everyday my vehicle is getting healthier and happier and in better control.’ And follow up the words with imagining yourself having a healthier body, a happier body and in perfect control of it.”103 Here one sees both a visualization—imagining one’s body in a new state—and a spoken or thought prayer—what one says to oneself. Other meditative prayers lacked one or the other elements, or combined them. Another particularly evocative prayer served as both a form of visualization exercise as well as prayer to be spoken or considered silently, but added an additional element of a heavenly visualization: “Now I want to imagine that I am sitting at the feet of the Chief . . . not being afraid of what He sees in me, but hoping He will examine me very carefully and thoroughly . . . prescribing exactly the circumstances, events and lessons which will start correction and adjustments so that I might get back on the tack of perfect growth.”104

  Such meditations or visualization prayers function analogously to those of other religious movements, but again are rooted within the worldview, beliefs, and practices of Heaven’s Gate. The first of the “Preparing for Service” prayers cited above follows a pattern as seen in American New Thought, positive thinking, and other forms of metaphysical religion. These traditions emphasize the power of thought in constructing reality, and the ability to heal and perfect the body through such thought. Historian of American religions Catherine A. Albanese has written of this form of religiosity as the third major strand in American religious life—in addition to evangelical and liturgical religion—and she views it as centered on “magical” practices that entail mental powers used to influence the body and outer world. In Albanese’s words, “[h]ere imagination and will join forces with the body and the material ‘field’ in which it dwells. In mental magic, the field is internalized, and the central ritual becomes some form of meditation or guided visualization—so that the mental powers of imagination and will can affect and change the material order, abolishing apparent flaws by realizing its unity with a cosmic Source.”105 Nettles’s “Preparing for Service” prayers function in precisely this manner, embodying the American metaphysical tradition within a particular worldview and theology specific to Heaven’s Gate. The second of Nettles’s “Preparing for Service” prayers adds to this by following a pattern often seen in religion, namely the heavenly vision. Most notably among mystical writings such as the Jewish Apocrypha (e.g., the Enoch literature) or Catholic mysticism (e.g., Teresa of Avila), such prayers effectively serve as visualizations meant to bring the worshipper closer to the divine. One finds similar visualizations in the Tantric Buddhist and Hindu traditions, and especially in Tibetan Buddhism, which uses visual aids as well. The Heaven’s Gate visualizations obviously differ from these examples in terms of the specific heavenly vision that they conjure, but like them the prayers serve to help the adherent imagine themselves achieving their religious goals, in this case a bodily transformation.

  Nettles’s “Preparing for Service” booklet concludes with two specific prayers: a four-line healing prayer and a twenty-eight-line meditative prayer meant to help an adherent ritually and physically transform themselves into an extraterrestrial creature. The healing prayer again follows in the vein of Albanese’s conceptualization of metaphysical healing practice, making use of “mental magic” to seek self-transformation.

  Figure 5.3. The “A Focusing” prayer from the “Preparing For Service” booklet. Booklet © TELAH Foundation. Image © Benjamin E. Zeller.

  The power of life is flowing through me; My (body) is healing perfectly.

  WITH STRONG INTENT AND POWERFUL FEELING, MY (BODY) RECEIVES A PERFECT HEALING.

  Help me have no human ways. No thoughts of self, No faults to see. Only the ways of space.

  Now I know my heart is fast. In my Father’s path at last. Only the ways of space. Only the ways of space.106

  Nettles’s untitled healing prayer reveals the central practices, beliefs, and worldview of Heaven’s Gate. First, it focuses on the body. The transformation of the body served as the heart of the message of the movement and the beliefs of founders and adherents. Before Nettles’s death, adherents believed that they would physically transform their bodies into perfected extraterrestrial creatures and physically journey to the Next Level aboard a UFO. This prayer, preserved after her death, still retains the belief in the perfection of the body. Since Nettles was actually dying from metastasized cancer while she wrote this prayer, her dedication to the transformation of the human body—and members’ dedication to this ideal despite her later death—emerges as a clear theme. The prayer in fact couches the idea of self-transformation in the language of healing, a standard trope in the metaphysical and New Age tradition from
which so many members came, but one particularly acute and somewhat ironic during the end of Nettles’s life.

  Second, the prayer reveals the centrality of meditative prayer and visualization in the religious practices of members of this group. As Albanese has written of such movements, “for American metaphysical believers and practitioners[,] ritual means—in the terms I employ for this narrative—‘material,’ or more usually, ‘mental’ magic.”107 Heaven’s Gate is therefore part of a broader American religious tradition wherein adherents conceive of mental imagination as efficacious means toward bodily control.

  Third, Nettles’s prayer shows the way in which overcoming one’s human condition remains at the heart of the group’s practices and beliefs. Members avoided common human activities such as eating for enjoyment, sexuality, close friendships, and most forms of recreation. They believed that they would transcend their human forms in this way, and looked toward the heavens as their true home.

  This then is the fourth point that this healing prayer reveals: the centrality of the vision of outer space in the worldview of Heaven’s Gate. Nettles’s “Preparing for Service” healing prayer invokes “the ways of space” three times in its closing, each time amplifying the message that members of this movement sought to reposition themselves—to cross, in Tweed’s terms—into outer space so as to recreate themselves as new extraterrestrial beings in the Next Level—to dwell there. Outer space served as the functional equivalent of heaven for members of Heaven’s Gate, but more than that it was the model for how one ought to live one’s life and practice one’s religion. Inhabitants of the Next Level lived in a state of crew-mindedness, of monastic discipline, of control and service. Those therefore became the hallmarks of life within Heaven’s Gate.

  The final prayer in Nettles’s collection, titled “A Focusing,” encapsulates many of the same themes, but in a much longer twenty-six-verse verbalized and non-verbalized prayer. The prayer begins with the theme of self-development and -transformation, moves into a visualization of such, and concludes with a call for further transformation.108 The TELAH Foundation, the inheritor of Heaven’s Gate’s various materials, explicitly granted me permission to reprint the prayer, therefore it appears in full here:

  A FOCUSING

  -I would like to know more than I now know.

  -I would like to have more control over my vehicle—it’s [sic] chemistry—its thoughts—its responses—its desires—than I now have.

  -I would like to rise above the things that distract me and bind me to this world.

  -There is a spot in the middle of my head.

  *-I am now concentrating—focusing on that spot.

  (It is about the size of my eyeball, it is like a gland that has been asleep, inactive, waiting for me to concentrate on it.)

  *-I am, right now, going to feel it become active and alive.

  *-I am focusing on it, I can feel it now in its location.

  *-All of my energy is being directed toward this Next Level gland.

  *-As this spot accepts all of my energy it is helping my chemistry change.

  *-I can feel the power of that energy there.

  *-I can feel the calm of that power.

  *-I can feel my chemistry in control.

  *-I feel no frustration or anxiety.

  *-I feel only that calm, powerful energy.

  (-As this spot becomes more alive it will help me sustain this calm.)

  (-It will eliminate distraction from my goal.)

  (-It will keep me clear.)

  (-I will know more.)

  *-As I recognize higher control and knowledge I will adopt it quickly, discarding my weaknesses.

  *-My potential for growth is limitless.

  *-I am rapidly changing.

  *-Growth has been offered to me and I am choosing to become it.

  *-I feel and hear that spot coming more to life!

  *-Change! Vehicle,

  Change! Chemistry.

  *-I am going to hold onto this until I sit and become even more!

  (* indicates especially long pauses)109

  One of the more remarkable facets of this prayer is the way it combines standard religious tropes with very specific elements of Heaven’s Gate’s worldview, beliefs, and practices. One might imagine members of many religious movements praying for “ris[ing] above the things that distract me and bind me to this world,” yet none other than adherents of this movement pray for awakening of a “Next Level gland.” This prayer in fact shows the diverse religious influences of Heaven’s Gate, and the way that the members of the movement and Nettles, who composed this prayer, drew from elements of Christianity, Hinduism (or Hinduderived movements), the New Age, and science and technology.

  The overall form of the prayer lets slip the Protestant heritage of most members of the movement, and Nettles’s own religious background as a Baptist before her explorations of Theosophy and the New Age. It follows a standard form of relatively short straightforward sentences without any particular ritualistic refrain or mystical references. Yet the overall tone reflects the interpretation found within the New Age tradition of the Hindu and Buddhist concept of the chakras, the energy centers in the body. Within the tantric philosophies of Hinduism and Buddhism, such chakras serve as neural and spiritual nexuses that serve important roles in biological and spiritual well-being. Tantric religious-medical practitioners focus on the treatment and health of the various nadis (vessels) connecting to these chakras, and look to the chakras as important energy centers in the body that have real effects on the well-being of the person. Though separating religion from medicine in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions presents difficulties, a second view of the chakras offers even more religious relevance. Tantric Buddhists and Hindus engaged in meditation believe that as they meditate they energize and empower these chakras, and that with the energizing of the top-most chakras—those generally associated with the forehead, brow, or crown of the head—one achieves awareness, enlightenment, and realization of the divine.

  The Focusing prayer identifies this energy center as a Next Level gland as a “spot in the middle of my head,” similar in size to an eyeball, the empowerment of which leads to self-transformation and development. Such references to making this gland or spot alive, waking it from sleep, and providing it with energy all reflect various interpretations of the chakra concept as promulgated in the American New Age movement. While no definitive list of the chakras exists and different tantric and New Age systems feature different versions, all identify the awakening of the chakra near the forehead—where Nettles identifies the Next Level gland—as leading to the religious and bodily fulfillment appropriate to those specific systems. The chakra system serves as an essential tenet in how many individuals within the New Age milieu understand health and the human body itself. As Wouter Hanegraaff has written of this tradition within the New Age movement, tying together themes of healing, the body, and spiritual development: “[a] central characteristic of Holistic health is the important role that the mind plays in physical healing. The immunity system or, alternatively, the Indian chakra system, is seen as the connection between the spiritual, mental and emotional faculties, on the one hand, and the physical body, on the other.”110 In Hanegraaff’s assessment the chakra concept binds together several different elements, i.e., mind, body, spirit, and serves as a key concept with the holistic sub-tradition of the New Age movement. For the adherents of Heaven’s Gate who used this prayer, the idea of the “Next Level gland” served the same role, both in function and form though not in name.

  Finally, the Focusing prayer makes explicit reference to scientific sounding concepts, an important part of the Heaven’s Gate worldview. Changing and controlling one’s bodily chemistry functions as a trope and repeated concept in this prayer, indicating the way in which members of Heaven’s Gate sought to engage in practices meant to chemically transform the body. Here the movement diverges from the metaphysical tradition that Albanese describes, since adherents looke
d to physical rather than metaphysical transformation as the key to their salvation and religious practices. Yet this prayer follows the movement’s broader trajectory toward invoking science and scientific-sounding concepts as part of their religious worldview and practices.

  Practices, Membership, and Beliefs

  Religious practice is very important for understanding how and why the Heaven’s Gate movement functioned as it did. Practices serve to solidify religious community, to create a sense of belonging and meaningfulness, to mark the boundaries between insiders and outsiders, to structure one’s experiences, and to give meaning to daily life. Historian of American religion Courtney Bender has written that the study of practice “draws attention to the capillary working of power in and through our bodies and speech, normalizing and naturalizing the relations that make our worlds.”111 Looking to practice, in other words, helps scholars pay attention to how the leaders and adherents of Heaven’s Gate navigated issues of power, relationship, the body, and the world.

  One cannot lose sight of the issues of power in Heaven’s Gate. Applewhite and Nettles created, founded, and led the movement, and with the exception of the tumultuous first years of the movement, served as the sole sources of religious and social authority. One could certainly leave the group, as many members did, but those who chose to remain accepted Applewhite and Nettles as such authorities. Applewhite’s religious revelations shaped the trajectory of the group, and his and Nettles’s ideas were the most important. Yet one too easily conceives of adherents as passive members meekly accepting whatever their charismatic leader said to them, as one so often finds in the common cult stereotype. Members of Heaven’s Gate probably did not create the contours of the worldview, theology, or practices of the movement, but they did fill in the details. The previous chapter traced how members such as Jwnody and Smmody filled in religious beliefs of the group, and this chapter has considered how members such as Brnody created meaningful rituals and other practices within the overall schema that Applewhite and Nettles developed. Practice allowed the members of Heaven’s Gate to navigate the power dynamics of the group and find meaning on their own terms, within the scope of the overall power structures.