Heaven’s Gate
We know how this one ends.
In 1997, in a rented mansion in Rancho Sante Fe, California, 39 members of a religious sect known as Heaven’s Gate committed a mass suicide. The followers were not born as culty weirdos. They grew up as happy, educated, normal people. How the hell did this happen?
What?
The group began in 1974, remaining nameless for quite some time. By the 1990s, their beliefs had transitioned to extreme versions of what the founders had originally preached. That’s not to say that their original beliefs weren’t already bizarre, but they certainly didn’t begin as a death cult.
1975 Heavens Gate recruitment flyer. Img courtesy of Rob Balch.
In summation, the original group believed that the two founders were the Two Witnesses prophesied in the New Testament. Also, these two were interstellar beings, and thus divinity was found among the stars with other aliens. And they were also the reincarnation of Jesus and his sage, respectively.
The work of the Two was to prepare the followers’ for a transition into life among these beings as a superior version of themselves, essentially divine. This would involve a purification that required separating themselves from their “humanness.” Through celibacy, poverty, and total devotion to these leaders—one of which claimed to be in communication with these higher beings/the divine—the followers would be ready to be taken away in a spacecraft.
There’s a ring of reincarnation in the way that the information was presented. The leaders claimed that souls reincarnate and there’s a chance every 2000 years to achieve divinity, but their way was the fast track.
Big Red Flag.
By the 1990s, a series of tragedies and perhaps the delusion of power morphed the group’s beliefs. Recruitment flyers from this era were reporting that this group was the “last chance” at salvation. The only way.
Big, Fat, Waving Red Flag.
A 1993 recruitment flyer for the Heaven’s Gate cult from Sacramento, CA. Img courtesy of Imgur.
THE TWO
Bonnie Lu Nettles while still working as a Registered Nurse in Houston, TX. Img courtesy of NY Daily News
The leaders, The Two, were legally known as Bonnie Lu Nettles and Marshall Applewhite.
Bonnie Lu was a registered nurse, mother of four, and wife in Houston, TX. Her marriage began to deteriorate in 1972 when she began research into the esoteric. It’s unclear if she began this research as a result of her failing marriage, or vice versa.
She had grown up in a Baptist environment, but had left the church. However, that background would become the basis for many of the cult’s beliefs.
Her dive into the esoteric included astrology—she delighted in creating star charts for the people in her life; Theosophy; and the occult. A spirit named Brother Francis would appear as a spiritual and astrological consultant, helping her perform her spiritual work.
According to her daughter, Terri, the pair once walked outside together into their backyard. She remembers bonding with her mother over a shared sense of not belonging here, in this society… on this planet. It was then that they both saw a light moving in the sky. This may have been the spark that turned Bonnie Lu’s attention toward UFOs and aliens.
Marshall Applewhite teaching a class. Img courtesy of CNN
Marshall Applewhite was born the son of a Presbyterian minister in Texas. He planned to become a minister himself, and married before fathering two children. He was well-educated, studying musical theater after his two-year stint in the US Army.
He would go on to become a professor, whereupon his engagement in affairs with some of his students prompted his wife to divorce him. It’s possible that he struggled with the shame of his promiscuity and the termination of his marriage. By the age of 35, he was also estranged from his two children.
Around this time, Applewhite began finding it difficult to make connections with other people. He also began having intense spiritual experiences, coming to believe that he had a calling, a mission from God. He just wasn’t sure what.
It’s important to note here that these are indeed symptoms consistent with schizotypal personality disorder and schizophrenia. However, he was not believed to be diagnosed with these disorders at the time, and it is not my job and unlikely to be your job to make these diagnoses posthumously.
Furthermore, if we were to dismiss all people who communicate with God/divinity as crazy, then we’d have to throw Moses, Jesus, St. Teresa, and Mohamed into that category as well. The problem isn’t that the leaders were communicating with divinity, it’s that they exerted over their followers a power that was abused.
Nettles and Applewhite met in 1972, whereupon Nettles performed a reading in which she claimed that his fate was tied to hers. They began a platonic relationship in which they cohabited. After several failed business ventures, namely a Christian/esoteric bookstore called Know Place, the pair decided to travel and teach about religion in 1973.
Not only did they teach, but they were also learning themselves. They began collecting various beliefs and adding them to their own Christian backgrounds. It was in Oregon that they came to three conclusions:
They were the two witnesses spoken of in the Book of Revelation.
They were actually aliens and that the resurrections mentioned in the Bible were actually demonstrations of amazing alien technology.
Because the two witnesses are prophesied to be martyred for their beliefs before their resurrection, they were convinced that they would share a similar fate.
Why would they come to such startling conclusions? It’s possible that the trauma of isolation and loss, combined with a sense that they didn’t belong, contributed to a state of mind desperate for meaning. Throw in the fact that on their journey they were deprived of physical comforts, often camping and at times subsisting “solely on bread rolls,” and you have the recipe for a very weird state of mind.
Perhaps, their destitution, failure, and feelings of exclusion led them to conclusions allowing themselves to feel superior to the rest of humanity. Feelings of superiority are dangerous, especially when held by those dangling the ultimate carrot in front of their believers.
Img courtesy of Cinemaholic
How could that happen?
Was the group really that strange in the era of its conception? What was the atmosphere like in the 1970s?
A popular and wildly controversial book Chariots of the Gods? was published in English in 1971. In it, the author gives credit for ancient human architecture and the beliefs of many religions to space aliens. The premise is that to an ancient human, a being bearing advanced technology would appear to be a god/goddess.
The television show Star Trek, which originally aired in 1966, grew a cult ;) following in the early ‘70s. The US sent astronauts to the moon in 1969. And the popularity self-realization and self-actualization spurred Tom Wolfe to call the younger generation in the 1970s, the “Me Generation.”
If ever there was a time to start a cult based on the premise of spiritual transformation through self-actualization so that one’s soul could be beamed up by superior alien beings, the 1970s were it.
We know now that the group was extreme in its beliefs and expectations of its followers. In its late years, the leaders expected their followers to stop thinking for themselves and follow their direction obediently. Their senses of self, personality, and creativity were diminished through a series of commands by the leadership.
Ben Zeller, an expert on the Heaven’s Gate cult, doesn’t believe that the members were brainwashed, but rather that the large family meetings meant intense peer pressure. That would imply choice throughout the followers’ tenures in the cult.
Dr. Steven Hassan, a cult survivor and researcher, however, believes that members of this group were absolutely under the influence of what he considers to be brainwashing. That would imply an apparent lack of choice, at least after joining.
The term brainwashing came from the 1950’s, when American P.o.W.s made anti-American statements after subjugation to “harsh conditions of deprivation” by Chinese captors who then provided them with comforts. Consider also that these men: 1. had seen and experienced terrible things because US commanders told them to; 2. likely experienced intense emotions due to capture; 3. knew that the threat of extreme physical coercion was possible. There is no evidence of these P.o.W.s have been put through Communist re-education, the idea of which inspired the book & subsequent movie The Manchurian Candidate. But that doesn’t mean that brainwashing doesn’t exist. It’s just that it was our government doing it. Other governments have since caught on.
So, better wording for Dr. Hassan’s observations is perhaps mind control. He compares videos and images of members prior to joining with their exit interviews. According to him, the group leaders took happy, bright, normal people and wiped their personalities, putting in place their own cult beliefs. In this case, the beliefs of Ti & Do, and later just Do.
Hassan says that when you hear a cult member say, “I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life,” or “I know what I’m doing,” know that those statements are unlikely to be true.
But, did these people join willingly? With informed consent? Did the 39 who exited their vehicles know upon joining this group that they would come to take their own life while dressed exactly like the other members of the group, and do it gladly?
Frank Lyford, who was with the group for 18 years before leaving, recounts that his recruitment was idealistic. There was a promise of achieving, in a sense, what many dedicated religious followers hope to accomplish. This ascension just happened to involve being taken to a better place in a space craft by highly-intelligent space aliens. And all of this, initially, was said would only take months. The prophecy wound up stretching into decades.
Lyford relates that after a series of meetings around the western United States, willing participants met up at a campsite in Colorado. Then another campsite, at which a smaller group remained. Then they were sent to a third campsite, with an even smaller group of willing participants. These curious remnants were finally able to meet with Ti and Do. This tactic was likely used to cull anyone who wouldn’t be truly dedicated.
The group that remained was given some instruction and was asked to change their names. What’s in a name? A whole hell of a lot. A name is your identity. A name is like “an elongated shadow attached at our heels.” To change one’s name is to change one’s shadow. If someone without their shadow were look down with the sun at their back, would that person recognize themselves?
Implements of Control
The concept of ritualistic transformation is not unique to this cult, but rather can even be seen in numerous popular religions. Christianity emphasizes a trinity of approaches, namely fellowship, personal practices, and counseling. Islam offers a fourfold approach, Orthodox Jews intensify their religious beliefs and practices, while Buddhists may focus on the Eightfold Noble Path.
The leaders of Heaven’s Gate, Ti and Do, drew heavily from the Christian Bible, but steeped those beliefs in others based in Western astrology, UFO lore, and other esoteric systems that they may have studied during their spiritual transformation. They tasked themselves with the metamorphosis of their followers, to prepare them for the coming of the Revelation.
The Book of Revelation emphasizes that those who will be saved from the foretold apocalypse are virgins and/or celibate. Literal translations of these passages exclude women from salvation…but incels would be accepted into sainthood? That’s beyond the point.
Another interpretation of these particular passages is that women are used to represent apostate churches, meaning any belief that the “true” church finds heretical, even if the heretics identify as Christians. I’m going to refrain from commenting on the use of women as a metaphor for a bunch of religions that someone doesn’t agree with, but… at least it’s not giving your yacht the pronoun she because you own think only female things can be owned.
The point is, interpretation of any holy book or practice is just that, an interpretation. That means that the person translating the concepts will likely apply their own beliefs and prejudices, as was the case with Ti and Do. Celibacy was a must, not just because it’s outlined in the Book of Revelation, but because it’s a human trait. In preparation for being taken away to a higher dimension by aliens in a a spacecraft, the followers were required to shed all that made them human.
“Humanness does not grow a next level body.” -Bonnie Lu Nettles
It’s possible that the trauma that Nettles and Applewhite (Ti and Do) had faced previously in their lives played a part in their belief that transforming into something “beyond human” was the best way to reach salvation. And in adopting the roles of the Two Witnesses of the Christian Revelation, they were able to transcend the trauma of their very human lives, through self-distancing.
The adoption of an alter-ego, aka The Batman Effect, is a phenomenon that has been praised by researchers. They cite the powerful effects of this process on overcoming fear, as evidenced by Beyoncé, aka Sasha Fierce; Adele, aka Sasha Carter; and any method actor.
Ti and Do were certainly distancing themselves from their former selves by creating alter-egos and certainly achieved great power over a number of individuals. But their work was ultimately not healthy, not for themselves and not for the people that followed them.
While the leaders adopted alter-egos (though Ti maintained contact with her daughter), their followers were led into an ego death with a total abandonment of their former lives.
In many spiritual practices, the Ego Death is an important symbolic rite of passage. The ego is considered to be a “guardian of our consciousness…allowing us to be aware of only those thoughts that respect our self-image.” These thoughts are our identities, what we believe, our affiliations, our self-esteem. These can be good or bad in relation to ourselves and/or other people. Talk therapy often challenges the ego, calling into question the usefulness of the current structure of our ego. Psychedelics can completely wipe away the ego, which is why it is so important to use them under supervision of a trained professional. It’s also why they were so useful in the MK-ULTRA experiments. Anyway…
The Ego Death in the context of a spiritual journey is the moment that one loses an attachment to the self/the material, and also self-centeredness. It is not supposed to be forced. It is discovered on the spiritual journey. The followers of the Heaven’s Gate cult were pushed into an Ego Death and, for 39 members, off the edge.
At the outset, things were not quite so insidious. First the followers were instructed to cut ties with their former lives (admittedly, not a good sign). Then, they agreed to celibacy, as Ti instructed that basic human instincts like sexual desire were not becoming of a higher being. (Strict celibacy wasn’t expected until after the first year, but the idea was put out to the group early on.)
Then they were told to change their names. This was the beginning of the erasure of the self… at the urging of another.
After the initial campsite meetings, individuals were paired up with a partner to begin proselytizing and recruiting new members. This is a biblical reference, found in Luke 10.
After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come.
Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.
Go your ways: behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves.
Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes: and salute no man by the way.
According to Corinthians (14:20 & 13:1) the testimony of one person is, in God’s eyes, unacceptable. Furthermore, according to Bible Study, “[i]n the Old Testament, the testimony of a single person was not considered sufficient to convict someone of murder (Numbers 35:30, Deuteronomy 17:6). In fact, two or three witness were required in order to establish that a person committed a sin worthy of punishment (Deuteronomy 19:15).”
They also mention the desire for a credible witness, should those receiving the word reject it. I’m not sure if this is for the protection of the preacher or to ensure that the word was being spread correctly. Please ask the next pair of gospel-spreaders that arrive at your door… nicely. Do it nicely.
In the Heaven’s Gate partnerships, the person deemed older (spiritually/metaphysically) was given authority. The younger partners were required to defer to their judgment at all times, as the elders were allegedly connecting (metaphysically) with their older partner. Initially, there was no instruction as to what that meant. Later it would be made known that Do was the older member to the followers, and Ti was his superior. Ti’s superior was not present on this physical plane.
The partners would travel across the country spreading the word for about a year, before the remaining members met up at a house. The prophecy of a few months of work before ascension had already failed, yet the cult kept on believing. Locations would change over the years, though the psychological effects of that first year would reverberate throughout the decades.
This deferral to the authority of another was yet another erasure of the younger partner’s sense of self, training them for complete obedience. Interestingly, it appears that after some time spent spreading the word, many of the older members went off on their own spiritual journeys. It would appear that retaining an ability to use their own judgment gave them the ability to question their leadership and leave. Many of the younger partners, like Lyford and his girlfriend Erika, remained.
1994 Flyer for a recruitment meeting in Berkeley, CA
Img courtesy of Wikipedia
Was this intentional on behalf of the leaders, Ti & Do? Probably not. If control was their goal, all followers would lose the chance to make their own judgments. It seems that total control, the control of a cult, would evolve slowly.
The desire to prove oneself was ingrained in the group. In a recording of a Class, Ti instructed her followers that they “have a position, [they] just have to qualify for it.” Qualify. As in, you are not worthy. You are not enough. This is important to keep in mind when we consider the motivitations of the followers who stayed for decades.
Along with the other tools used by Ti and Do to erase followers’ senses of self, the idea of worthiness was particularly pervasive. This particular tactic is also used by abusers in romantic relationships and is called emotional abuse. There is a difference between encouraging someone to become better and denigrating them as inherently unworthy.
It should be clear that these individuals were down with the idea of celibacy and obedience from the start. According to Lyford, the idea of ascending to a higher state of being was an opportunity greater than any terrestrial pleasure. He joined the cult with his girlfriend of 3 years, Erika. They broke up up initiation while remaining in the cult together for nearly two decades, touching only once. While Lyford got out, Erika would go on to become one of the 39 that took their own lives in 1997.
However, the extremes that some individuals went through to maintain that celibacy would come later. Including Do, 8 male members of the cult elected to be ritualistically castrated. Now, I’m not condemning anyone who chooses to go through with such an extreme step for the sake of spiritual transformation.
In the Cult of Cybele, a mother cult of the Hellenistic period, followers worshiped in orgies. And not like gross, fake, free Internet porn orgies. We’re talking ascending-to-the-heights-of-transcendent-enlightenment-in-a-frenzy-that-mimicks-madness kind of orgy. In this frenzy, some male followers elected to castrate themselves and serve as eunuch-priests of Cybele. In this way, they would no longer achieve the orgasmic ecstasy that wrought their enlightenment. They would instead serve the goddess in a subdued, penitent manner.
My concern regarding this instance of ritualistic castration comes from the testimony of a member named Trsody, which can be watched here. CAUTION: it is essentially an exit interview prior to the mass suicide in which he discusses his satisfaction with the castration and looking forward to taking his own life. Please note that this man was heavily influenced by manipulation and his testimony should not be taken as an encouragement to end one’s life.
However, immediately after this procedure, Do was horrified. Trsody was screaming, in pain, and had to be taken to the hospital. Do asks his followers to be taken to the police, that he had committed a crime. But the group said no. They had been so thoroughly indoctrinated that they refused to accept that these beliefs could be wrong.
So, who was under whose control?
Ti was recorded as having said: “You never think of yourself…never.” What disturbs me about Trsody’s testimony is that he calls the castration a way to prove himself to the remaining cult leader, Do. Years of instilling in their followers a sense of inherent unworthiness leading to ritualistic self-mutilation reeks of an abuse of power. His castration wasn’t really a choice, and neither was his suicide. The “older member” that Trsody says that he became closer to after his castration was Do.
According to Lyford, a follower’s relationship to their older member was the most important relationship one could have…even more so than one’s relationship with oneself. This is the danger of a forced ego death, especially one under the guidance of someone convinced of their own superiority.
Were the 39 Under Mind Control?
Remember that the original word of Ti and Do was that ascension to the next level would take months. Then, Ti’s prediction in 1978 laid out a very clear prophecy that the ascension would be in 5 years. Then, nothing.
Ti was distraught. She had truly believed in the prophecies she felt that she was receiving. So in a 1982 letter to her daughter, she hinted that she had stopped believing.
In spite of the leaders’ doubts of their own predictions, the followers did not let the leaders dissolve the cult.
Before you get to thinking, what freaks, please consider the denials of reality we’re experiencing today:
“Climate change is a myth.”
“Climate change is inevitable and there’s nothing we can do".”
“The USA is the best country in the world in every possible category.”
Do in his later years. Img courtesy of Newsweek.
We are products of our environments. Cognitive dissonance is not a failure of character on behalf of those indoctrinated, especially when someone has erased your sense of self for years. But it is dangerous.
Further acrimony would come as Ti died a very slow death that was evident to all. In the early 1980s, she was diagnosed with cancer that let to the removal of her eye. Yet her belief in her divinity and prophecies persisted, as the cancer spread to her liver. She passed away in 1985. Her death did not follow the plan of the Two being martyred by nonbelievers and then resurrected. And yet, the group persisted.
While Do was still considered the leader of the group, the followers had urged the group forward when their leaders faltered on at least two separate occassions. While the machine of Heaven’s Gate was clearly created by Nettles and Applewhite, at some point, as the result of their indoctrination, the indoctrinated became part of the machine.
If—instead of a mass suicide—the group had committed a mass homicide, how would the law consider this case? At what point does a person conditioned by mind control lose the ability to rationalize morality? At what point does an indoctrinated individual lose legal immunity in the prosecution of their actions? At what point has a person been completely converted?
The Descent
According to followers who left before 1997, Do became darker and more controlling in the years after Ti’s death. In an ironic statement against suicide published on the cult’s website, Do shows that he has begun to associate Heaven’s Gate with militant religious groups who had come under siege by agencies of the US federal governement.
Specifically, he mentions Ruby Ridge (1992), in which a family wrongly accused of terrorist charges after a land dispute with a neighbor was further investigated for ties to the Aryan Nation. Federal agents would go on to lay siege to the family’s private residence, killing the dog and two family members. The attack by federal agents was highly questionable.
He also mentioned the Waco Siege (1993), in which a militant religious sect, the Branch Davidians, came under federal scrutiny for the actions of its leaders, including sexual abuse of minors, statutory rape, and assault with a deadly weapon. The same FBI Hostage Rescue Team negotiator on the Ruby Ridge case, Richard Rogers, was place in command of this site, “which ultimately created pressure to resolve the situation tactically due to lack of HRT reserves.”
So, it was not a good time to be considered a cult leader. But Do related his cultwith these groups, regardless of their morality. Consider that Do, a man whose life partner had recently died and whose cult was without direction after the failure of a prophecy and the death of its sage, was likely distraught. What do people in power do when distraught? Good decision making is not the answer that comes to mind.
Do could have recognized the aftermath of violent retalliation for cult activities. But instead, he doubled down. He began purchasing firearms, and encouraging his followers to learn how to shoot them.
Then, the true descent. In 1994, one year after the Waco siege, Do sat his followers down for a family meeting in a warehouse in San Clemente, CA. He announced that suicide was the final step in order to ascend. Followers who did not wish to remain had the option to leave. He would pose the question for 3 more years, but Do liked to put followers on the spot and ask them in front of other members: Will you willingly exit your vehicle in order to ascend? Would they prove themselves?
They all had the opportunity to leave, and all but 38 did.
Prior to the mass exit, the remaining group rented a swanky mansion outside of San Diego, CA for $7,000 per month, which they paid in cash.
They took a trip to Vegas. They stayed at a hotel, they took a freefall ride on the Bigshot, and they gambled! They then took a trip to a Buddhist monastery to speak with some of the monks there.
What would you do if you knew when and where you would leave this terrestrial plane? They also began purchasing the regalia which they would all wear on their way out, knowing that the world would see. In a reference to Star Trek, they ordered armbands that read Heaven’s Gate Away Team.
In spite of decades spent eradicating all traces of their humanity, they were all still very much human.
Shortly thereafter, the group left a suicide note on their website. And then, in March of 1997, the 39 made their exit.
Modern Parallels
It’s hard to think that another Heaven’s Gate could manifest now or in the future. But, there are elements of their group that can be seen in various forms today. Obviously, cognitive dissonance due to propaganda is crucial to all cults, and—on a grander scale—zealotous belief in an economic system or a nation-state.
The dual-leadership model of male and female lends powerful iconography. The heterosexual model of a 2 parent system is seen as the default in most countries, though thought regarding that is becoming less rigid.
Regardless, the model of a mother and father figure as leaders of a cult presents many of its followers with a model similar to that of the “default” family. Therefore, with the substituted parental hierarchy, a follower may be more willing to participate in the group and subsequently be indoctrinated. This is especially true if the leadership claims that they are the only alternative to a system with which the follower takes issue.
A positive example of this leadership dynamic can be found in Allyson and Alex Gray, founders of the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors in New York state. They preach that the creation of art is a pathway to enlightenment. They are an interfaith group that promotes creativity, whereas Heaven’s Gate enforced a single belief structure and opposed creativity as a threat to their leadership.
CoSM members are often pretty into the use of psychedilics, which may fast track the ego death and could result in dangerous consequences. However, as psychedelics are not integral to the group’s beliefs, it’s highly unlikely that they’re being used to control people. Quite the opposite. Control seems to be antithetical to the Grays’ beliefs.
Another group, this time nameless, has been formed by former psychiatrist Dr. Kelly Brogan and her husband Sayer Ji. Getting her start as a medical doctor, with a B.S. in systems neuroscience from MIT and a medical degree from Cornell University Medical College, makes her credible in the field of psychiatry and neuroscience.
However, her beliefs became more radical with more time spent with her current partner, Sayer Ji, who began the pseudoscience blog Green Med Info. They’ve also started an empire with many, many followers hoping to oppose conventional medicine in its entirety. Dr. Kelly Brogan does not believe that viruses exist. She does not believe that bacteria can cause disease. She and her partner believe that one’s thoughts are solely responsible for deaths from alleged infections.
This is a bacteriophage, a type of virus. Img courtesy of Prophage.
In reality, there are many types of viruses. And we’ve sequenced the genome of some varieties. And if bacteria weren’t dangerous, why is Bacillus anthracis, the bacterium that causes anthrax, used as a bioweapon?
In the age of COVID-19 denialism, their propaganda is dangerous. I’m morbidly curious as to where their following will lead.
And in news of people pushing their own beliefs about aliens to the possible detriment of others, we’ve still got leaders with a following. Dr. Steven Greer is a former physician who is now making a name for himself as a self-proclaimed ufologist. I have no evidence to counter his claims, and that’s not the issue. He’s making a (significant) profit by taking the curious on weeklong excursions to learn how to make contact with extra-terrestrials, for $2,500-3,500.
Extra-terrestrials are quickly becoming a more accepted topic of discourse. If Dr. Greer really can teach people to make contact, then holy shit how cool.
If you are someone who has made contact with extra-terrestrials through Dr. Greer’s program then please contact me if you’d like to share your story.
He has many credible witnesses on his website, but… is it really their own story that they’re telling? And, why profit so heavily from this secret knowledge? It casts doubt on his sincerity.
By portraying himself as an expert leading the opposition to the conventional narrative, he’s going to attract a following of people dissatisfied with the conventional system. And then what will he tell them?
And finally, the idea of continuing a belief system even when its prophecies don’t come true is alive and well with the group QAnon. The group’s leadership predicted “The Storm,” a coup of the federal government in both 2017 and 2020. Despite these events not happening, the group persists, often with militaristic zeal. Examining QAnon deserves its own post, but they undoubtedly present a danger to society.
Conclusion
Heaven’s Gate was a horror story of the human psyche. An example of indoctrination so strong and in just the right circumstances, that even the cult leaders could not stop the march towards self-mutilation and mass suicide. Let us not let something like this happen again.