Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Diplomacy or Submission? The Zionist Grip on US Political Power and Trump’s Uneasy Alliance With Netanyahu

2 days ago

Fresno Suspect Caught After Jumping Out of Second-Floor Window, 2 Others Arrested

3 days ago

Tesla Has Applied to Arizona for Robotaxi Service Certification, State Transport Department Says

3 days ago

Evacuations Ongoing as San Luis Obispo’s Madre Fire Scorches Tens of Thousands of Acres

3 days ago

US Senate to Vote on Trump Aid, Broadcasting Cuts as Deadline Looms

3 days ago

US Health Department Widens Immigrant Benefit Restrictions

3 days ago

Fresno Police Arrest Suspect in Stabbing That Left Man Critically Injured

3 days ago

Madera County Authorities Seek Next of Kin for North Fork Man

3 days ago

Froot Loops Maker WK Kellogg Agrees to $3.1 Billion Deal From Italy’s Ferrero

3 days ago

China Signals Willingness to Sell Fighter Jets as Iran Eyes J-10 Aircraft

3 days ago
New Streaming Series Examines Heaven's Gate Suicide. This Author Wrote the Book on Cult.
The-Conversation
By The Conversation
Published 5 years ago on
December 5, 2020

Share

Heaven’s Gate – also known as the “UFO cult” – burst into American consciousness on March 26, 1997 when law enforcement discovered 39 decomposing bodies in a San Diego mansion.

Each detail that emerged from the scene stunned a rapt public: Adherents had committed suicide in waves on March 22 and 23, ingesting a lethal mix of barbiturates and alcohol; they lay under purple shrouds, with five-dollar bills and rolls of quarters in their pockets; all wore simple dark uniforms and Nike tennis shoes.

By Ben Zeller

The Conversation

(A four-part docuseries examining this largest-ever mass suicide on U.S. soil, titled Heaven’s Gate: Cult of Cults, debuted this week on HBOMax.)

Bizarre as these details may seem, if you actually look at the group’s beliefs and history, Heaven’s Gate has far more in common with American culture than you might expect.

In my book on Heaven’s Gate, I argue that the group drew from broad trends in American culture – religiosity, apocalyptic thinking and an interest in fusing science and religion.

But one theme has become even more evident since I wrote the book. The group’s embrace of conspiratorial thinking reflects a culture of conspiracy that has long existed in the margins of society – and has re-emerged at the center of American life.

Christian, New Age Origins

At the time of the suicides, Heaven’s Gate had been in existence for over two decades.

It was founded in 1972 when two Texans, Bonnie Lu Nettles and Marshall Herff Applewhite, bonded over shared interests in alternative spiritual exploration, astrology and biblical prophecy. They came to believe that the Bible foretold an extraterrestrial rapture wherein some individuals would be saved from life on this planet and journey to what they called the “Next Level,” a physical realm in outer space where they would live as an immortal, perfected species of space aliens. They gained their first significant attention and converts in 1975 among alternative spiritual seekers in California and Oregon.

Nettles and Applewhite drew from Christian sources, particularly prophetic and apocalyptic material. They were also inspired by the New Age movement, which emphasized meditation, diet and the channeling of spiritual beings. Like many religious people, members of Heaven’s Gate sought salvation from what they considered a corrupt world.

After Nettles died of cancer in 1985, the group’s adherents increasingly rejected their earlier belief in what they called biological metamorphosis, wherein their human bodies would chemically transform into extraterrestrial forms. Instead, they now envisioned abandoning their human bodies on Earth and transferring their consciousnesses – through (unspecified) technological-spiritual means – into new extraterrestrial “Next Level bodies.” (This is roughly analogous to reincarnation.)

Eventually, some members came to believe that they actually were space aliens – that they’d taken on human forms to learn about life on our planet – though this belief appears to have not been universally shared.

The Paranoid Style of American Religion

It may come as a surprise that, until the suicides, Heaven’s Gate attracted little outside attention.

They didn’t face government persecution, angry ex-members or professional anti-cultists eager to destroy them – all of which dogged other new and alternative religions like the Peoples Temple (the group behind the Jonestown massacre) and the Branch Davidians (the targets of the Waco siege).

So what drove Heaven’s Gate to consider collective suicide?

In the final years of the group’s existence, members came to believe in an elaborate conspiracy that leading governmental, religious and economic figures had colluded with a group of demonic extraterrestrials called “the Luciferians.” According to Heaven’s Gate members, these evil forces were all working in concert to cover up the existence of UFOs, and specifically a UFO “companion” that trailed the Hale-Bopp comet, which came closest to Earth on March 22, the day the suicides began.

The sort of conspiratorial thinking that Heaven’s Gate adopted was nothing new. Their belief in government conspiracies and UFOs could be traced back to popular responses to the first “flying saucer” sightings and the crash of an unknown object in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.

Religious studies scholar Joseph Laycock has written about how some aspects of the emerging UFO subculture blended scientific and supernaturalist theories, bringing together religion and conspiratorial thinking. Likewise, historian David G. Robertson has documented how UFO conspiracy theories eventually merged with New Age religious thinking to create what he calls “UFO millennial conspiracism.” Heaven’s Gate was part of those trends.

While Heaven’s Gate emerged from ufological culture, they also engaged in a long and storied pattern of conspiratorial thinking by American religious and political movements, a relationship historian Richard J. Hofstadter explored in his famous 1964 essay on the “paranoid style of American politics.”

In the 19th century, this relationship was especially pronounced in a strand of American Protestantism that envisioned an array of nefarious agents attempting to wrest American culture from the values – and control – of white, English Protestants. They initially targeted (sometimes violently) Catholic immigrants – who were neither Protestant nor English – and justified their actions with a blend of nativism and conspiratorial thinking.

And it was this sort of conspiratorial thinking that suffused American political movements, whether it was McCarthyism or the anti-Masonic movement. Hofstadter wrote that proponents of such ideas often felt “dispossessed,” that the country had been “taken away from their kind.”

Today, many fear that external agents, from Muslims to illegal immigrants, have eroded core American “Judeo-Christian” values. Perhaps as a result, we’re now witnessing rising nativism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

When Conspiracy Goes Mainstream

Heaven’s Gate also embraced what historian Michael Barkun calls a “culture of conspiracy,” which divides the world between evil forces secretly conspiring among one another, true believers aware of the conspiracies and the mindless masses who operate without awareness of the truth.

While Barkun focuses on the religious and cultural margins, today the same elements are arguably at work in American political discourse, whether it’s talk of secret government wiretaps, a deep state, or cover-ups within the scientific community on topics ranging from vaccines to climate change.

The adherents of Heaven’s Gate wouldn’t probably be drawn to these various political conspiracies, though they shared the belief that powerful forces colluded behind the scenes to hide the truth. In order to support their claims of the existence of extraterrestrials and UFO visitations, they embraced this conspiratorial logic.

In the 90s, people laughed off the conspiracy theories that consumed the group and eventual led them to “opt out” of the planet and commit suicide.

But what happens when political leaders embrace a similar logic?

About the Author

Benjamin E. Zeller is a researcher and teacher of religion in America. He focuses on religious currents that are new or alternative, including new religions, the religious engagement with science, and the quasi-religious relationship people have with food. 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/what-the-heavens-gate-suicides-say-about-american-culture-74343.

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

US Online Spending Surges $24.1 Billion as Steep Discounts Boost Sales, Adobe Says

DON'T MISS

Trump Threatens to Revoke Rosie O’Donnell’s US Citizenship

DON'T MISS

Trump Intensifies Trade War With Threat of 30% Tariffs on EU, Mexico

DON'T MISS

Trump’s Attorney General Drops Fraud Case Tied to COVID Vaccinations

DON'T MISS

Homeland Security’s Noem Says in Talks With Five Republican-Led States to Build Detention Site

DON'T MISS

Clovis Police Say Teen Changed Clothes, Hid After Reckless Riding Pursuit

DON'T MISS

Gaza Truce Talks Faltering Over Withdrawal, 17 Reported Killed in Latest Shooting Near Aid

DON'T MISS

Fresno Dog Left Behind After Owners Die Months Apart, Now Needs a Home

DON'T MISS

Frazier Defends $894K Pay as Nonprofit Loses $1.1M, Blames City for Financial Struggles

DON'T MISS

Key Events in the Air India Crash Investigation

UP NEXT

Trump Threatens to Revoke Rosie O’Donnell’s US Citizenship

UP NEXT

Trump Intensifies Trade War With Threat of 30% Tariffs on EU, Mexico

UP NEXT

Trump’s Attorney General Drops Fraud Case Tied to COVID Vaccinations

UP NEXT

Homeland Security’s Noem Says in Talks With Five Republican-Led States to Build Detention Site

UP NEXT

Clovis Police Say Teen Changed Clothes, Hid After Reckless Riding Pursuit

UP NEXT

Gaza Truce Talks Faltering Over Withdrawal, 17 Reported Killed in Latest Shooting Near Aid

UP NEXT

Fresno Dog Left Behind After Owners Die Months Apart, Now Needs a Home

UP NEXT

Frazier Defends $894K Pay as Nonprofit Loses $1.1M, Blames City for Financial Struggles

UP NEXT

Key Events in the Air India Crash Investigation

UP NEXT

Fresno Police to Target Speeding in Saturday Traffic Operation

Trump’s Attorney General Drops Fraud Case Tied to COVID Vaccinations

1 day ago

Homeland Security’s Noem Says in Talks With Five Republican-Led States to Build Detention Site

1 day ago

Clovis Police Say Teen Changed Clothes, Hid After Reckless Riding Pursuit

1 day ago

Gaza Truce Talks Faltering Over Withdrawal, 17 Reported Killed in Latest Shooting Near Aid

1 day ago

Fresno Dog Left Behind After Owners Die Months Apart, Now Needs a Home

1 day ago

Frazier Defends $894K Pay as Nonprofit Loses $1.1M, Blames City for Financial Struggles

2 days ago

Key Events in the Air India Crash Investigation

2 days ago

Fresno Police to Target Speeding in Saturday Traffic Operation

2 days ago

Tulare County Man Sentenced for Fatal DUI Crash That Took Mother, Daughter’s Lives

2 days ago

US Judge Grants Trump Admin Request to Scrap Biden-Era Medical Debt Rule

2 days ago

US Online Spending Surges $24.1 Billion as Steep Discounts Boost Sales, Adobe Says

Online spending soared $24.1 billion across U.S. retailers during the stretch from July 8 to 11 – dubbed “Black Friday in Summer”...

1 day ago

Packages are transported on a conveyor belt at the Amazon warehouse on Prime Day, in Melville, New York, U.S., July 11, 2023. (Reuters File)
1 day ago

US Online Spending Surges $24.1 Billion as Steep Discounts Boost Sales, Adobe Says

Presenter Rosie O'Donnell speaks on stage about Madonna during the 30th annual GLAAD awards ceremony in New York City, New York, U.S., May 4, 2019. (Reuters File)
1 day ago

Trump Threatens to Revoke Rosie O’Donnell’s US Citizenship

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures to the U.S. flag flying on a new flagpole after stepping off Marine One returning from New Jersey at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 6, 2025. (Reuters/Ken Cedeno)
1 day ago

Trump Intensifies Trade War With Threat of 30% Tariffs on EU, Mexico

Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks to the media in the Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington D.C., June 27, 2025. (Reuters File)
1 day ago

Trump’s Attorney General Drops Fraud Case Tied to COVID Vaccinations

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks during a press conference to discuss the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)'s "National Farm Security Action Plan", outside the USDA in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. (Reuters File)
1 day ago

Homeland Security’s Noem Says in Talks With Five Republican-Led States to Build Detention Site

1 day ago

Clovis Police Say Teen Changed Clothes, Hid After Reckless Riding Pursuit

A Palestinian man from the Katoo family, with his son, mourns beside the body of his other son, who was killed by Israeli fire while seeking aid near a distribution point in Rafah, according to medics, at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, July 12, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
1 day ago

Gaza Truce Talks Faltering Over Withdrawal, 17 Reported Killed in Latest Shooting Near Aid

After losing both of his owners, a 5-year-old cattle dog named Ozzy found a second chance at happiness thanks to a local rescue group and a loving foster home. (Mell's Mutts)
1 day ago

Fresno Dog Left Behind After Owners Die Months Apart, Now Needs a Home

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend