Heaven's Gate

by Benjamin E. Zeller

  55. The precise date of Nettles’s death is in dispute since her survivors in the movement seemed to have filed a falsified death report. Balch was able to access the death certificate, which listed a fraudulent first name and a date of passing of June 18. Former member Sawyer reports a date of passing of June 19. Regardless, she had been suffering from a recurrence of cancer for at least six months. Balch, email to author, March 12, 2013; Sawyer, “Heaven’s Gate: Do Response to Ti Earlier Vehicle Exit,” http://sawyerhg.wordpress.com/2009/09/.

  56. Sawyer, “Heaven’s Gate: Do Response to Ti Earlier Vehicle Exit.”

  57. Mrcody and Srfody, oral history and interview.

  58. Heaven’s Gate, “’88 Update,” 3:12.

  59. Applewhite and Nettles, “Bo and Peep Interview with Brad Steiger, January 7, 1976,” 89.

  60. Ibid., 149.

  61. Muss, “No Disease Promised,” n.p.

  62. Sawyer, “Heaven’s Gate: Do Response to Ti Earlier Vehicle Exit.”

  63. DiAngelo, Beyond Human Mind, 37.

  64. Mrcody and Srfody, oral history and interview.

  65. Heaven’s Gate, “’88 Update,” 3:8.

  66. Diana G. Tumminia, When Prophecy Never Fails: Myth and Reality in a Flying Saucer Group (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); Miller, When Prophets Die.

  67. Mrcody and Srfody, oral history and interview.

  68. Heaven’s Gate, “Beyond Human—the Last Call, Session 2,” 4:20.

  69. Heaven’s Gate, “Beyond Human—the Last Call, Session 4,” 4:44.

  70. Heaven’s Gate, “Beyond Human—the Last Call, Session 3,” 4:27.

  71. Howard, “Rhetoric of the Rejected Body at ‘Heaven’s Gate’,” 159–60.

  72. Heaven’s Gate, “Beyond Human—the Last Call, Session 3,” 4:27.

  73. Heaven’s Gate, “Last Chance to Evacuate Earth before It’s Recycled [Transcript of Videotape],” http://www.heavensgate.com/vt092996.htm.

  74. Snnody, “Deposits,” in How and When “Heaven’s Gate” May Be Entered, A:80.

  75. Jnnody, “Incarnating and Discarnating,” A:89.

  76. Heaven’s Gate, “Beyond Human—the Last Call, Session 7,” 4:83.

  77. Partridge, “The Eschatology of Heaven’s Gate; Zeller, “Scaling Heaven’s Gate.”

  78. Heaven’s Gate, “Beyond Human—the Last Call, Session 11,” 4:121.

  79. Zeller, “Scaling Heaven’s Gate.”

  80. Balch, “Waiting for the Ships,” 157. For more on the revolving door nature of Heaven’s Gate, see their own material, especially the transcripts of their Last Call videocassette series, and Beyond Human, session 5, 4:52.

  81. Mrcody and Srfody, oral history and interview.

  82. Leon Festinger, Henry W. Riecken, and Stanley Schachter, When Prophecy Fails (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1956), 27.

  83. Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter, When Prophecy Fails, 27. For an examination of Festinger’s main points as well as an analysis of his study, see Jon R. Stone, ed., Expecting Armageddon: Essential Readings in Failed Prophecy (New York: Routledge, 2000). Consider especially the chapters by Stone, Zygmunt, and Melton.

  84. David Chidester, Salvation and Suicide: An Interpretation of Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and Jonestown (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 130.

  85. Mrcody and Srfody, oral history and interview.

  86. Balch, email to author, September 14, 2013.

  87. DiAngelo, Beyond Human Mind, 47–48.

  88. Heaven’s Gate, “The Shedding of Our Borrowed Human Bodies May Be Required [Poster],” 6:11.

  89. DiAngelo, Beyond Human Mind, 48.

  90. Heaven’s Gate, “The Shedding of Our Borrowed Human Bodies May Be Required [Poster],” 6:11.

  NOTES TO CHAPTER 5

  1. Benjamin E. Zeller, “Heaven’s Gate: A Literature Review and Bibliographic Essay,” Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review 1 (2009). Available at: http://www.academicpublishing.org/ASRR-1-1/02-HeavensGate.pdf.

  2. Sarah M. Pike, New Age and Neopagan Religions in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 80; Jeffrey Kripal, Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).

  3. Kay Alexander, “Roots of the New Age,” in Perspectives on the New Age, ed. James R. Lewis and J. Gordon Melton (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 42.

  4. Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture, 46.

  5. J. Gordon Melton, Jerome Clark, and Aidan A. Kelly, eds., New Age Encyclopedia: A Guide to the Beliefs, Concepts, Terms, People, and Organizations That Make up the New Global Movement toward Spiritual Development, Health and Healing, Higher Consciousness, and Related Subjects (Detroit: Gale Research, 1990), xiii.

  6. Pike, New Age and Neopagan Religions in America, 22.

  7. Human Individual Metamorphosis, “Statement #1.”

  8. Human Individual Metamorphosis, “Statement #2.”

  9. Ibid.

  10. Mrcody and Srfody, oral history and interview.

  11. Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths: Eastern, New Age Beliefs Widespread.

  12. Scott Lowe, “Transcendental Meditation, Vedic Science and Science,” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 14, no. 4 (2011).

  13. Thomas W. Segady, “Globalization, Syncretism, and Identity: The Growth and Success of Self-Realization Fellowship,” Implicit religion 12, no. 2 (2009); Catherine Wessinger, “Hinduism Arrives in America: The Vedanta Movement and the Self-Realization Fellowship,” in America’s Alternative Religions (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995); Douglas Renfew Brooks, ed., Meditation Revolution: A History and Theology of the Siddha Yoga Lineage (South Fallsburg, NY: Agama Press, 1997).

  14. Hall, Lived Religion in America.

  15. Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp, Leigh Eric Schmidt, and Mark R. Valeri, eds., Practicing Protestants: Histories of the Christian Life in America, 1630–1965 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 16.

  16. Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1977).

  17. Pierre Bourdieu, “Genesis and Structure of the Religious Field,” Comparative Social Research 13 (1991). Previously published as “Genèse et structure du champ religieux,” Revue française de sociologie 12.2: 295–334.

  18. Terry Rey, Bourdieu on Religion: Imposing Faith and Legitimacy (London: Equinox Publishing, 2008), 129.

  19. Thomas A. Tweed, Crossing and Dwelling: A Theory of Religion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 54.

  20. Ibid., 68–69.

  21. Ibid., 82.

  22. DiAngelo, Beyond Human Mind, 29.

  23. Balch, “Waiting for the Ships,” 157.

  24. DiAngelo, Beyond Human Mind, 30.

  25. Tweed, Crossing and Dwelling, 103.

  26. Carey Goldberg, “Death in a Cult: The Compound: Heaven’s Gate Fit in with New Mexico’s Offbeat Style,” New York Times, March 31, 1997, A12.

  27. Tweed, Crossing and Dwelling, 83.

  28. DiAngelo, Beyond Human Mind, 56.

  29. Goldberg, “Death in a Cult: The Compound,” A12.

  30. This is a paraphrase of several members, who recounted the experience to Mrcody and Srfody, who had left the movement by that time. Mrcody and Srfody, oral history and interview.

  31. Tweed, Crossing and Dwelling, 99.

  32. Kurt A. Bruder, “Monastic Blessings: Deconstructing and Reconstructing the Self,” Symbolic Interaction 21, no. 1 (1998).

  33. Lars Ivar Hansen, “Saami Society through Time,” American Anthropologist 97, no. 1 (1995): 132–33.

  34. Robinson, “I Found the Missing People from Waldport”; Balch and Taylor, “Seekers and Saucers.”

  35. Applewhite indicated that this event occurred some time between late 1976 and 1978, yet former members Mrcdy and Srfody pinpointed it to late 1977, based on their recollection of having left Wyoming because of the incr
easing cold immediately preceding the renaming. Mrcody and Srfody also provided the details of the renaming itself. Heaven’s Gate, “’88 Update,” 3:9; Mrcody and Srfody, oral history and interview.

  36. Heaven’s Gate, “Beyond Human—the Last Call, Session 4,” 4:41.

  37. Anlody, Exit Video (Rancho Santa Fe, CA, 1997).

  38. Mrcody and Srfody, oral history and interview.

  39. DiAngelo, Beyond Human Mind, 21–22.

  40. Balch, email to author, September 14, 2013.

  41. Brnody, “Up the Chain,” in How and When “Heaven’s Gate” May Be Entered, A60.

  42. See for example Rkkody; DiAngelo, Beyond Human Mind.

  43. DiAngelo, Beyond Human Mind, 95.

  44. Drrody, “Exit Video.” Emphasis added.

  45. Nrrody, “The Truth Is . . .” in How and When “Heaven’s Gate” May Be Entered, A15; Nrrody, Exit Video (Rancho Santa Fe, CA, 1997).

  46. DiAngelo, Beyond Human Mind, 21.

  47. Ibid., 22.

  48. Mrcody and Srfody, oral history and interview; Sawyer, email to author, July 25, 2013.

  49. Marc Augé, Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, trans. John Howe (London: Verso, 2009), 8.

  50. Tweed, Crossing and Dwelling, 123.

  51. Heaven’s Gate, “’88 Update,” 3:3.

  52. Balch and Taylor, “Salvation in a UFO,” 61; Balch, “A Study of Defection,” 31.

  53. Phelan, “Looking For: The Next World,” 12.

  54. Balch and Taylor, “Seekers and Saucers,” 842–43.

  55. Human Individual Metamorphosis, “Statement #3,” 1.

  56. Phelan, “Looking For: The Next World,” 59.

  57. Muss, “‘Grave Not Path to Heaven,’ Disciples Told,” n.p. This source is held in the American Religions Collection, ARC Mss 1, Department of Special Collections, University Libraries, University of California, Santa Barbara. It is a newspaper clipping and does not include the original page number.

  58. McGrath, “UFO ‘Lost Sheep’ Tell Cult Secrets,” 1.

  59. Williamson, “‘It Was a Sham’: Why One Convert Left the UFO Cult,” 2.

  60. Human Individual Metamorphosis, “Statement #3,” 1.

  61. Human Individual Metamorphosis, “Prospective Candidate Letter,” http://www.rkkody.com/rkk/rkkomat.htm [Defunct].

  62. United Press International, “Couple Asks for UFO Volunteers—Now 20 Missing,” 1; United Press International, “It’s the Second Coming . . . We Are All Going Home,” 3; McGrath, “UFO ‘Lost Sheep’ Tell Cult Secrets,” 26.

  63. Williamson, “‘It Was a Sham’: Why One Convert Left the UFO Cult,” 2.

  64. Mrcody and Srfody, oral history and interview.

  65. McGrath, “UFO ‘Lost Sheep’ Tell Cult Secrets,” 26.

  66. Pat Reed, “Two Women UFO Disciples Reveal Identity; Say They Are Not Cult,” Houston Chronicle, November 26, 1975, 9.

  67. Since the early days of Heaven’s Gate were characterized by organizational confusion and a lack of centralized leadership, in all likelihood several different monetary practices developed simultaneously. After Nettles and Applewhite gathered the group into a single community and instituted greater leadership, they also centralized the shared purse system.

  68. Heaven’s Gate, “The 17 Steps,” 2:8.

  69. Heaven’s Gate, “Major and Lesser Offenses,” 2:9.

  70. Ibid.

  71. Mrcody and Srfody, “Oral History and Interview with Author, September 30-October 1, 2013.”

  72. Williamson, “‘It Was a Sham’: Why One Convert Left the UFO Cult,” 2.

  73. Human Individual Metamorphosis, “Prospective Candidate Letter.”

  74. Heaven’s Gate, Class Meeting with Ti and Do, 15 July 1982 (1982), Audio Tape.

  75. Heaven’s Gate, “The 17 Steps,” 2:8.

  76. Gilbert, “I Was a Member of the UFO Cult,” 48.

  77. Smmody, “T.E.L.A.H. – the Evolutionary Level above Human,” A22.

  78. DiAngelo, Beyond Human Mind, 47.

  79. Heaven’s Gate, “Beyond Human—the Last Call, Session 5,” 4:60.

  80. Heaven’s Gate, “Beyond Human—the Last Call, Session 10,” 4:114.

  81. David Grumett, “Dynamics of Christian Dietary Abstinence,” in The Way of Food: Religion, Food, and Eating in North America, ed. Benjamin E. Zeller et al. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), 5.

  82. Heaven’s Gate, “’88 Update,” 3:10.

  83. Mrcody and Srfody, oral history and interview.

  84. Balch, email to author, September 14, 2013.

  85. B. Drummond Ayres, Jr., “Cult’s Self-Denial Left Room for Pizza and Trip to Las Vegas,” New York Times, April 4, 1997 1997, A, 16.

  86. Human Individual Metamorphosis, “Prospective Candidate Letter.”

  87. Heaven’s Gate, “Anonymous Sexaholics Celibate Church Introduction and Ways,” http://www.rkkody.com/rkk/rkkomat.htm#intro [Defunct].

  88. Ibid.

  89. McGrath, “UFO ‘Lost Sheep’ Tell Cult Secrets,” 26.

  90. Mrcody and Srfody, oral history and interview.

  91. DiAngelo, Beyond Human Mind, 45.

  92. Ibid., 46.

  93. Human Individual Metamorphosis, “Statement #3.”

  94. Marshall Herff Applewhite, “Do’s Intro: Purpose—Belief,” in How and When “Heaven’s Gate” May Be Entered, iii.

  95. Bruce Ellis Benson and Norman Wirzba, eds., Phenomenology of Prayer (Bronx, NY: Fordham University Press, 2005), 1.

  96. Mrcody and Srfody, oral history and interview; Sawyer, email to author, July 28, 2013.

  97. Brnody, “Up the Chain,” A61.

  98. Ibid.

  99. Ibid., A62.

  100. Ibid., A64.

  101. Heaven’s Gate, “Preparing for Service.”

  102. Ibid.

  103. Ibid.

  104. Ibid. Ellipses in the original.

  105. Catherine L. Albanese, A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 7.

  106. Heaven’s Gate, “Preparing for Service.”

  107. Albanese, A Republic of Mind and Spirit, 7.

  108. I have elsewhere analyzed this prayer from the perspective of how it invokes technological, scientific, and physical language in service of religious goals. Zeller, Prophets and Protons, 138–41.

  109. Heaven’s Gate, “Preparing for Service.”

  110. Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture, 56.

  111. Catherine Bender, “Practicing Religions,” in The Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies, ed. Robert A. Orsi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 294.

  112. R. Marie Griffith, Born Again Bodies: Flesh and Spirit in American Christianity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 255.

  113. Stephen J. Stein, The Shaker Experience in America: A History of the United Society of Believers (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992).

  114. Jeremy Rapport, ““Join Us! Come, Eat!”: Vegetarianism in the Formative Period of the Seventh-Day Adventists and the Unity School of Christianity,” in The Way of Food: Religion, Food, and Eating in North America, ed. Benjamin E. Zeller et al. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014); Kate Holbrook, “Good to Eat: Culinary Priorities among Mormons and the Nation of Islam,” in The Way of Food: Religion, Food, and Eating in North America, ed. Benjamin E. Zeller et al. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014).

  NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

  1. Robert W. Balch and David Taylor, “Making Sense of the Heaven’s Gate Suicides,” in Cults, Religion, and Violence, ed. David G. Bromley and J. Gordon Melton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 224.

  2. Heaven’s Gate, “Our Position against Suicide,” http://web.archive.org/web/19961222130009/http://www.heavensgate.com/.

  3. Balch and Taylor, “Making Sense of the Heaven’s Gate Suicides,” 209–10.

  4. Ibid., 223–26.

  5. C
atherine Wessinger, How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate (New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2000), 229.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Ibid., 230.

  8. Ibid., 244.

  9. Lewis, “Legitimating Suicide: Heaven’s Gate and New Age Ideology,” 113.

  10. Several former members continue to be active in disseminating the materials produced by the Class before its demise. These include Mrcody, Srfody, Rkkody (d. 1998), Jstody (d. 1997), Oscody (d. 2000), Crrlody, and Sawyer.

  11. Wessinger, How the Millennium Comes Violently, 230.

  12. Robert Jay Lifton, Destroying the World to Save It: Aum Shinrikyō, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism, 1st ed. (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1999), 325.

  13. Ibid., 321.

  14. Lalich, Bounded Choice, 98.

  15. Ibid., 106.

  16. Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge, A Theory of Religion (New York: Peter Lang, 1987); Stark and Finke, Acts of Faith.

  17. DiAngelo, Beyond Human Mind, 48.

  18. Sawyer, email to author, July 25, 2013.

  19. Sawyer estimates that thirty-six members remained. One of Balch’s informants indicates it was closer to forty-eight. Sawyer, email to author, July 25, 2013; Balch, email to author, October 16, 2013.

  20. Thirty-nine individuals died in Rancho Santa Fe. Several former members committed suicide after the main deaths in March 1997. The four confirmed ex-members are Rkkody (Chuck Humphrey, d. 1998), Jstody (Wayne Cooke, d. 1997), Gbbody (Jimmy Simpson, d. 1997), Oscody (Wayne Parker, d. 2000).

  21. The best example of this language is found in the Heaven’s Gate “Exit Press Release.”

  22. Heaven’s Gate, “Heaven’s Last Mission,” in “How and When ‘Heaven’s Gate’ (The Door to the Physical Kingdom Level above Human) May Be Entered: An Anthology by Representatives from the Kingdom of Heaven,” first unpublished draft (1996), 1:2.

  23. Balch and Taylor, “Making Sense of the Heaven’s Gate Suicides,” 220.

  24. Heaven’s Gate, How and When “Heaven’s Gate” May Be Entered, 6:1–2.

  25. Ibid., 6:3–11.