Footage of Heaven's Gate cult leader Marshall Applewhite

For anyone interested in cults, this is a great read. It's about cult infiltrator David Sullivan

I was only 12 when Heaven's Gate committed mass suicide. Reading about it now. Holy SHIT. It's even crazier than I realized.

[quote]The group increasingly focused on the suppression of sexual desire; Applewhite and seven others opted for surgical castration. They initially had difficulty finding a willing surgeon, but eventually found one in Mexico.

Gay, hated being gay, drove him crazy. That was always my take.

I've fallen pretty deep into this rabbit hole

r3 that makes perfect sense

I'm stupefied when people are ignorant of what I consider canonical recorded effluvium. Like people who don't know "I don't know her."

Lots of gays and lesbians on those exit statements.

It seems a lot of those who died had been members for 20+ years, since their early-mid 20s. So basically, their entire adult lives were spent in the cult.

The eyes tell the entire story

Their web design site is still online

He was clearly an independent thinker. That is, fucking nuts.

They tried to be as androgynous as possible

Oh, dear

Cloud Cuckoo Land

I feel like I need to do a mental cleanse after reading about this mess

Fascinating article, R1. You can imagine that Sullivan would have been a successful cult leader himself if he had chosen to go that route.

I didn't realize they committed suicide in "shifts," essentially, with certain groups assisting others in carrying out the act.

The whole psychology of it seems bizarre to me. The majority of the members who died had been in the cult for 20+ years. While Applewhite discouraged interpersonal relationships, it's only human to feel love and affection for people you've spent most of your life with. I wonder if any of them had second thoughts during the actual suicides.

[quote]At least three former members of Heaven's Gate ultimately died by suicide themselves in the months after the mass suicide event. On May 6, 1997, Wayne Cooke and Chuck Humphrey attempted suicide in a hotel in a manner similar to that used by the group. Cooke died and Humphrey survived this attempt. Another former member, James Pirkey Jr., died by suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot wound on May 11. Humphrey, who had survived his first suicide attempt, ultimately killed himself in Arizona in February 1998.

Per r11, dozens of people still try to join Heaven's Gate every week

I love this wild bitch.

Is r19 posting from Hale-Bopp?

Their original website lives on:

So as a cult this Heaven's Gate still exists? People are so fucking gullible and stupid.

It’s a good thing social media wasn’t around otherwise Heaven’s Gate would have been much larger and more people would have died.

QAnon and Republicans have now taken its place. Anitmaskers/antivaxxers die all the time. Conservative death cults are all alike.

Applewhite faked his death, disappeared for a few years and then came back and founded Amazon.

I faked my own death?

"They tried to be as androgynous as possible "

They were queer non binaries!!!

[quote]I faked my own death?

r26, r25's post seems to have gone over your head. Rea the whole sentence.

What a bunch of lunatics, their "last meal" was at a Marie Callender's restaurant and they all had the same thing: iced tea, salad, turkey pot pie and blueberry cheesecake. WTF.

Stop giving me ideas! Oh wait, now that I've thought it over, that's definitely going to be my next 5 course dinner party.

This story feels VERY 1990s to me.

Especially the hideous interior of the suicide mansion!

He was delusional and his followers ended up sharing his delusions.

I hope the phenobarbital and vodka made for a memorable final cocktail

I apologize for the poor quality, only one I found.

There is a great HBO documentary series about the whole thing.

Ugh. It was so traumatizing to be a kid in the 90’s. You’d go to the grocery store with Mom and you’d see images of Nicole Brown Simpson dead or beaten on the cover of National Enquirer or Applewhite’s bulging eyes and the people me with the Nike sneakers.

And then scary alien shit.

Horrifying. Applewhite’s scary face is forever haunting me.

I had a smart ass math teacher in junior high. I remember when the story broke, we were discussing it at the beginning of class. A student aked, "Well, did they get on board the spaceship?" The teacher replied dryly, "I looked up at Hale-Bopp last night, and I didn't see anyone waving."

i think mark rylance borrowed from Applewhite for his performance in DONT LOOK UP.

r4 is sad. They all seemed like misfits.

This is a fascinating documentary

Was he the Halle-Bopp guy?

I have the porno sendup video, autographed by Ron Jeremy who starred as Marshall.

I was wrong. I just found it. It’s called Heaven’s Anal Gateway and my autograph is from Dave Cummings. Shoot. I thought I had something worth bringing to Antiques Roadshow.

The survivors now work at Betterup*

A few survivors still believe in this TWENTY-FIVE years later. Bizarre.

What's also strange is that Bonnie Nettles seems to have been the original mastermind of the cult. After she died, Applewhite maintained his devotion to her and her teachings. Amazing how his followers more or less assumed his delusions. The human mind is a terrifying thing sometimes.

I love the uneducated.

r46 many of the members of Heaven's Gate were college-educated.

Certain personality traits seem to determine one's likelihood to join a cult, rather than education level. Also, middle- and upper-class people are more likely to be cult members.

r40 states that males were paired off with females. I think the majority of members struggled with same-sex attraction and Applewhite tried to put an end to it.

[quote] I'd never seen a video of him before.

OP must be really young then, because they played the fuck out of that video when it happened. It was on almost every news and talk show, for weeks.

I was in seventh grade, r49. I remember seeing Applewhite on the cover of magazines, but never saw video footage of him.

R50 Funny so was I but I watched a lot of news programming. I was that weird seventh grader who watched the CBS Evening News every night.

r51 hmmm ... maybe I blocked the footage from my memory!

I remember Applewhite's visage creeped me the fuck out at 13

It’s strange cult leaders have kind of died out. I mean you have a cult leader like Trump and Tucker Carlson and QAnon but you can’t compare them to someone like Jim Jones and Marshall Applewhite who convinces people to kill themselves. Or to go out and murder like Charles Manson.

I think Gen Z would be so vulnerable to a cult leader. If Jim Jones or Applewhite were around today, they’d have had way bigger followings.

When this happened, the first time I saw the news about it, I had woken up in the middle of the night after having a bunch of drinks with dinner. I looked over at the TV and they were showing footage of these people in bunk beds with these Nike sneakers on. And Applewhite’s trippy video. It was like a nightmare I was having, and it stuck to me all the next day. It was like this horror seeped in while I was vulnerable from the alcohol.

Jim Jones forced those people by gunpoint to off themselves.They were sleep deprived, starving and overworked and menaced into killing themselves..the tape recordings of the event recorded the victims' distress. They did not want to die.

Today you can call them Trumpsters.

... or kill their children (which is the part about Jonestown that haunts me the most)

r53 I think part of it is generational. Both Jones and Applewhite (and Manson, for that matter) benefited from a generation who were already disenchanted and looking for something more.

Also, I don't know much about the sociology of cults, but I wonder if present political and societal upheaval (COVID, racism, climate change, MAGAism, etc) will give rise to cults like Heaven's Gate and the People's Temple in the next 10 years or so.

R58 I'm sure such cults have already formed as a result of those things. The thing is unless, and until, they commit terrorism or suicide we won't hear about them.

My how time flies. I was a kid when they all killed themselves. The coolest thing about the situation is that they were all wearing Nikes.

True, r59

As an aside, the NYTimes did a story on Heaven's Gate (before it was called Haven's Gate) in 1976

Did he do his own research?

The heavensgate.com domain (anonymized registration details) was registered in December of 1997, nine months after the cult members killed themselves. It also has an encrypted https url, which makes me wonder who is keeping it updated.

R63 They made it on the space ship?

[quote]There is a great HBO documentary series about the whole thing.

I watched that a few weeks ago over a weekend and it was pretty good.

I wouldn't be surprised if a scripted mini-series is eventually made about Heaven's Gate.

Bezos really does look like Applewhite.

My Mom went to high school with him in Corpus Christi, Texas.

I've always found it eerie/coincidental that given the cult's fascination with Space, that one of the members who committed suicide was Thomas Nichols, brother of Nichelle "Lt. Uhura" Nichols.

[quote]their "last meal" was at a Marie Callender's restaurant and they all had the same thing: iced tea, salad, turkey pot pie and blueberry cheesecake.

Can you imagine just being their server? Some high school girl probably, and 40 people show up at the door all dressed in weird androgynous clothes and calling each other these bizarre names ("Wknody, why don't you sit over there?"), and then they all sit down and order the exact same thing! I would have totally freaked out and run screaming to my manager.

Plus, you know those people who think they're on a higher plane than the rest of us are all bad tippers.

When I was a teenager I remember this one : they found the last cult member under the kitchen sink, looking for the Comet.

He has the schizophrenic stare

I was on a Zoom AA meeting last night and one of the senior members (who is considered "very spiritual" at that meeting) looked a lot like a younger version of him. Sounded a little like him too.

You in danger gurl!!

In 1982, there was a TV movie about Applewhite and Nettles

CBS Evening News coverage

A former colleague of mine committed suicide in the Solar Temple cult in Switzerland. It was also active in France and Canada. She also murdered her own daughter. This has tormented me for years. She was in her early 30s, very intelligent, very kind, beautiful. How could she fall for that crap? The only 'character defect' I've been able to identify is she didn't have a sense of humor, never understood a joke and tended to be self-deprecating.

Psychiatrists have never studied cult mentality. And now with half the country in thrall to a conman like Trump, they need to step up. What the fuck is wrong with people?

[quote] Psychiatrists have never studied cult mentality.

Do you really think this?

Absolutely. I was working for a professor of psychiatry when my former colleague died in the Solar Temple massacre. He seemed not only to have no idea why people did those things, but have no interest in it.

There was of course a whole spate of these mass suicides/murders in the 80s. Never read anything that tried to seriously analyze how people could become enthralled to what were obviously conmen. Same thing now with Trump.

Lots of references to scholars who study this problem here.

The Heaven's Gate people were crazy!

There is some weird shit out there.

Really not much different than the Q-Anon loons or the current followers of Hair Furor. If someone is still believing Trumputin’s bullshit at this stage they are only a couple notches of less cray cray than the Haley-Bop tribe.

Explanation of why many follow cults from experiences with various adherents,

Attended several potlucks and informative non-religious lectures with an LDS friend. Was told I'd never be a good convert as I tend to question everything. Cult members have been severely punished for not immediately obeying authority figures from the earliest ages.

Group-think is strong for many, the urge to belong by not being ostracized. Extreme fear of being criticized. Note that I've been repeatedly dissed on DL for holding somewhat opposing views to the majority.

Love bombing is intense in the beginning of cult conversion. Those going thru a vulnerable period in their lives are especially subject to constant encouragement and seeming optimism ie IF I become a Scieno then I'll get immediate connections to casting directors and larger acting roles.

Some want immediate answers to life's stresses even if it's a guarantee they'll get into heaven no matter what they've done in the past. Cult leaders are authoritative, decisive, charismatic, seductive.

Very interesting, r83

I definitely think cult joiners are a "type"

Were the castrations testicles-only or the Chinese Imperial Court clean-sweep nullo?

Tremendous man.

Do you ever think maybe they were right to get out while the getting was good?

Four years after they peaced out, 9/11 happened and it has been a shitshow since.

I remember when I was a kid to use the euphemism "Exit Their Containers" for committing suicide.

I found it is hilarious as fuck back then but now that I'm older I realized that it's really insane.

It's interesting that most of the members who died joined in their 20s and 30s, and then spent the next 20 years together, with each other and with Applewhite.

Listening to the "exit interviews" reveals a number of them talk about being ready to get rid of their "containers" or "vehicles." It makes sense that they'd all started to age together and were dealing with the bodily effects of aging -- let's face it -- getting old is hell.

The deaths that really haunt me are Gail Maeder (who'd only been in the cult a few years and was in her late 20s), Yvonne McCurdy-Hill (who'd only been in for six months AND left her husband and kids to join) and Michael Barr Sandoe (25 I think; he had also been castrated.)

I'm surprised some evil huckster hasn't revived the cult yet. "New Heaven's Gate" or something. The former members who run the website receive dozens of emails a week from people looking to join.

There's a lot of money to be made in this mess.

I assume that Applewhite was having sex with some of the male members and that's what led to the castrations.

Applewhite had two kids. I wonder if they've ever spoken publicly about the cult? I assume after he joined up with Nettles he cut off contact with them. For her part, Nettles would periodically send letters to one of her daughters.

Right after the mass suicide, Rio DiAngelo, the former member who found the bodies, spoke with Larry King. One of the callers asked him if he had a relationship with his 15-year-old son. (I wonder if the call was from his ex-wife??) Anyway, his response was disturbing. Larry said, "You have a son?" and he replied, "The vehicle has a son." DiAngelo is a "true believer" and apparently still believes the Applewhite gospel 25 years later.

Also: Applewhite was increasingly paranoid after the Waco siege.

I think that also contributed to his eventual decision to lead his followers into mass suicide.

I always forget what an awful interviewer Larry King was

Anyway, Bonnie Nettles' daughter is one of the interviewees, as well as a former Heaven's Gate member

Are there any good books on Heaven's Gate?

r94 I am waiting on this one from the library. It's supposed to be one of the best.

I've also found a few books with chapters dedicated to Heaven's Gate (a more academic treatment, if that's your jam). They include:

Cults, Religion, and Violence, eds. Bromley & Melton, (Cambridge, 2002)

UFO Religions, ed. Partridge (Routledge, 2003)

I've fallen really far down the rabbit hole during the past couple of weeks and been scouring the internet for information. You can still access many of the news articles written about individual members in the weeks after the mass suicide. The one in the post below, for instance, provides some insight into the last member to join the group, only six months before they died.

Another aspect of the weirdness -- and there is A LOT of weirdness in this story -- are the former members who are still "true believers" and who visit various message boards to defend Nettles and Applewhite, all these years later. It's really truly bizarre.

Article referenced at r95

If I could live absolutely anywhere, I think I'd choose Rancho Santa Fe. I just love it there.

r97 = the ghost of Marshall Applewhite

Another interesting story from 1997 r94

I think, at the end of his life, Applewhite had become suicidal. But he also could not abide the group continuing without him, which is why he instigated the mass suicide.

OP, how is this the first time you saw it? It was played non-stop. Netflix has a documentary you should check out. Can’t remember the title. Google it. It’s very informative with ex members.

[quote]OP, how is this the first time you saw it?

I don't know, r101 ... I was 12 when this happened and not much interested in watching the news. But I do remember reading either Time or Newsweek and seeing images of the bodies. I was also terrified of Applewhite's face (which graced the covers of both magazines).

I’m gonna sit at the Welcome Table one of these days! Hallelujah!

Next month will be the 25th anniversary.

Here is footage of members trying to recruit people in Chicago in the mid-1990s:

The 90s were a magical time.

Cults (and religions) are just meme complexes that propagate themselves and ensure their own survival. They still exist, they've just evolved an gone online. Trans, political tribes, mental health fakers, and countless other internet subcultures are the new cults.

Who even knew UFO religions were a thing?? (Other than Scientology, which gets a lot of press, obviously.)

I feel I've been sheltered!

You just know gurl was a bossy bottom.

R103 Love. Trust. Beauty. Friends. Fudge.

Lol r110!

The most tragic part of this story for me is that 1997 was TWENTY-FIVE years ago.

^ Geez, I know. That was the year I graduated high school. It doesn’t seem THAT long ago…but now I guess I’m entering eldergay territory.

The footage from the Chicago recruiting meeting (r105) is fascinating.

They (the members of the cult -- Applewhite wasn't present) really knew exactly how to tap into people's insecurities.

Love the people walking out in r105’s clip. They must thank their intuition for being alive today.

r116 I didn't watch the entire presentation and I can't remember where exactly it occurs. However, at one point during the Q&A, someone asked something like, "Do you still talk to your families?" or "Why don't you talk to your families?"

They refused to answer and snapped, "We're only answering questions from people with their hands raised." And of course they never called on that person.

The more I read about the cult, the less I am certain that Applewhite himself was a true believer. (I don't think most cult leaders are.)

I think he got addicted to the attention and the power of being surrounded by 38 people who would do anything he told them. I think he was slightly delusional and his followers shared in his delusions. But ultimately, I think he was tired of living and wanted a way out. He did a lot of things to assure it would be a big media story.

20/20 is covering an episode tonight on this.

Here's the episode. A lot of footage I'd never seen.

Applewhite had a great voice.

The 25-year anniversary of the suicides is this week.

He had POZ face, something even a cult leader can’t “recycle”.

I cannot imagine being stupid enough to fall for shit like this.

These people wanted an excuse to suicide themselves.

[quote]These people wanted an excuse to suicide themselves.

Instead of just killing themselves?

Their website is still up 😆

I should get Heaven's Gate tattooed above my asshole.