For two decades Marshall Applewhite prepared members of the Heaven's Gate cult for the journey to the "Evolutionary Kingdom Level Above Human," using a theology that mixed space alien lore and doomsday prophecy with bits of Christianity.
Applewhite, known to his followers as Do (Doe), described himself as an "Older Member" of an advanced level of beings that included Jesus Christ. According to postings on the cult's Internet site, members believed Jesus also preached the Higher Source philosophy. Applewhite claimed to be continuing the task Jesus began 2,000 years ago.A key element of the cult's philosophy was the rejection of family ties. The cult called the family a tool of the ruling "Luciferians," a disfavored race of space aliens who wielded power on Earth through misguided governmental, religious and societal structures.
The Luciferian space aliens engage in genetic manipulation and hybridization with humans, the cult said. "They started all religions and masquerade as Gods."
"Only the Luciferians could have Christians believing that Jesus promoted family values, becoming better humans, establishment of professional religious institutions and looking for the Second Coming," states a cult document. The Luciferians use "religion and sexual behavior to keep humans drugged and ignorant."
And so the group prepared to abandoned this corrupt planet, which they considered a stepping stone to Heaven, for what it believed would be a better life on the next plane.
Applewhite said an Older Member from the Next Level had informed him that the Hale-Bopp comet was a marker that indicated the arrival of a spacecraft from the "Level Above Human" that would transport followers "home."
"Whether Hale-Bopp has a `companion' or not is irrelevant," the group said in a posting on its Internet site, referring to claims by some ufologists about a craft flying in the tail of the comet.
Earth to be `recycled'
What mattered to the cult was that the comet signaled Earth was about to be recycled or "spaded under" because of its corrupt inhabitants. The cult's mass suicide was planned to take advantage of a narrow window of time to hitch a ride on a spaceship sweeping by Earth that would carry them to Heaven's Gate and "the true Kingdom of God" before cataclysmic events on the planet.
The cult's Internet site lays out the evolution of the group, from its founding in the early 1970s to final musings outlined in a document updated in January.
Applewhite first began publicizing his beliefs in 1975 with his partner Bonnie Lu Trusdale Nettles or "Ti" (Tee). They referred to themselves as "The UFO Two" who held the keys to "Heaven's Gate" and equated their stature with that of Jesus and his Father.
The couple said they had come to Earth in a spaceship and that the government had seized their genderless, alien bodies. At that time, they said, their souls moved into two 40-year-old bodies "tagged" for their use.
Nettles held Older Member status in the Level Above Human, according to a statement on the Internet site, and served as mentor to Applewhite. The mission of Applewhite, Nettles and other members of the cult was to acquire information useful in the Next Level.
A time of seclusion
After a furor over the couple's first attempts to publicize their beliefs and attract followers, Applewhite and Nettles went into "seclusion." Nettles died in 1985, though Applewhite maintained he continued to receive information from her.
The period of seclusion apparently continued until 1988, when it was briefly interrupted by publication of an "update" on the cult's beliefs and activities. In the early '90s, the cult "began to get clear signals that `classroom time' was nearly over and that some involvement with the public was about to begin."
The cult had a "coming out" in 1992 with satellite TV broadcasts of a program it called "Beyond Human - The Last Call," which was aimed at attracting "lost sheep" - former followers who'd dropped out of the cult. On May 27, 1993, it published a one-third page ad in USA Today entitled "UFO Cult resurfaces with Final Offer." Variations of the ad appeared in alternative and weekly newspapers and magazines across the country and overseas.
In January 1994, cult members sold everything they owned except for a few cars and clothes and embarked on a nine-month, cross-country speaking tour. They gave TV, radio and newspaper interviews and staged public lectures.
The purpose of the tour was not public awareness or education, but to look "for additional crew members of the Second Wave."
Recruiting in Utah
The jaunt apparently included a stop in Utah that spring. About 10 to 15 cult members worked and lived at Alta Ski Resort for a short time in 1994. The group, calling itself Total Overcomers Anonymous, also held at least one meeting at the Salt Lake City Library in 1994, according to several media reports.
The tour was apparently successful. The cult said additions "to our class in '94 nearly doubled our numbers."
The cult believed there were three types of humans on Earth: human "plants" not sufficiently advanced to receive soul deposits; humans with soul deposits who were in contact with Applewhite, the order's sole Earthly representative; and humans with soul deposits who'd rejected or because of other circumstances had not developed a relationship with Apple-white.
The cult's goal was to give the latter group the chance to connect with Applewhite.
The group said humans open to its message could be identified by their disenchantment with the world and its systems. Others often regarded such individuals as irresponsible, anti-social, duped, crazy, cult members, drifters, loners or dropouts, the group said.
Undercover `Jesus'
In September 1995 the group cast a wider net in search of potential members: it posted a statement titled "Undercover `Jesus' Surfaces Before Departure" on the Internet's World Wide Web at its Heaven's Gate site. The same statement was sent to 95 Usenet news-groups.
In October 1995 it followed that document with a "95 Statement by an E.T. Presently Incarnate" which elaborated on some cult beliefs. The Internet, the group acknowledged, put its message with-in reach of millions of people simultaneously.
One cult member who is now dead, Yvonne McCurdy-Hill, a 39-year-old Cincinnati woman, left a husband and five children to join the group after investigating its Web site.
The cult referred to a German affiliate on its Heaven's Gate site, and there is a German Web site with the title "Heaven's Gate" that appears to be associated with the cult.
Computer technology also yielded a means of making a living. The group settled in San Diego and began a Web page design business. And technology provided metaphors for describing the cult's philosophy: the soul was a "hard drive" on which information could be stored, and the brain a "human computer." They believe individuals made progress in understanding the cult's philosophy as their "circuitry" made the proper adaptations to information.
The cult also managed to weave bits of Christianity into its tapestry of beliefs, though the group formulated its own unique and sometimes contradictory twist to Christian concepts. In some documents the cult says the "Gods" of organized religion are both the creations of and incarnations of malevolent space aliens, or followers of Satan/Lucifer.
Ten Commandments `updates'
In other document sections the cult referred to a "God" that oversees the Higher Source. For example, the cult says this God gave Moses "elementary commandments" (the Ten Commandments) suitable for the primitive society that existed at the time. Jesus Christ then brought more "updates" to those edicts.
The cult believed that at the time he was baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus began to occupy a body that had been "tagged" for him to possess.
In the 2,000 years since Christ's death, there have been no true representatives of the Higher Source on earth until Applewhite. "I'm in the same position to today's society as was The One that was in Jesus then," Applewhite said.
The Rev. Mike Dew, a self-described prophetic minister from New Mexico, met a Heaven's Gate leader eight months ago and said the group was "preying on weak Christians."
In an interview with the Associated Press, Dew said group members were "portraying themselves as ascended masters or a `Higher Source.' " Until June, cult members apparently lived in a compound near Mountainair, N.M., and call themselves the Prophetic Voices of the Wilderness. "They'll use the terms `Jesus' and `God,' but not in the traditional way," Dew said. "If you're not careful, you'll miss what they're doing."
The Heaven's Gate cult believed Jesus was the first Older Member to use a human body as a "vehicle" for spreading Higher Source beliefs. The sole mission of Jesus: to offer the way leading to membership in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Passage to the Kingdom of Heaven apparently required "total renunciation of the human world and ways," including family relationships and sexuality, and acquiring a sufficient understanding of the cult's beliefs.
Citing Bible passages
The cult cited Bible passages from St. Luke and St. Mark to bolster its belief system. Members pointed to Jesus' example and admonishments to his disciples to leave their families and societal roles as evidence that the "Next Level" required followers to cut themselves off from families, relationships and other trappings of worldliness.
"Sexuality and the family are the greatest weapons used by opposing forces to keep people from following the Evolutionary Level Above Human," a document states.
Relatives of the dead cult members who've spoken to the media in recent days say they had little or no contact with members after they joined the Higher Source group.
The cult members were told in addition to cutting off family ties, they had to forsake human ways, addictions, thinking and gender behavior.
"Some in the class have chosen on their own to have their vehicles neutered in order to sustain a more genderless and objective consciousness," a cult document states. Castration of many suicide participants has been verified by autopsies. Other members, male and female alike, emulated a genderless look by adopting buzz-cut hair styles and dressing alike in shapeless clothes.
Technology the turning point?
Technology, however, may have proved the turning point for the group. The response to its Internet postings apparently wasn't all positive; the group described reaction as "extremely animated" and "somewhat mixed" - with the "loudest voices expressing ridicule, hostility or both."
"This was the signal to us to begin our preparations to return `home,' " the group said in a "farewell legacy" written in April 1996. In a document last edited in January 1997, the cult offered a last chance for others who wanted their souls to "advance beyond human," where they would receive new "containers" that were nonmammalian, non-seed bearing and genderless.
"The Earth's present civilization is about to be recycled - spaded under - in order that the planet might be refurbished. The human weeds (gangs, those engaged in violence, crime and war) have taken over the garden and disturbed its usefulness beyond repair," the document says.
Those who have the "deposit of Life" but who missed the opportunity to join the "today's Next Level crew" in leaving Earth will be spared during the recycling as long as they adhere to the cult's beliefs, the group said. "They will one day find themselves a member in the Level Above Human."
Ironically, cult members had a written statement forbidding suicide, as they defined it, which is "to turn against the next level when it is being offered." Yet they believed "exiting their vehicles" through suicide was "dignified," and compared such action to the Jewish sect at Masada, whose members killed themselves rather than be overtaken by the Romans in 73 A.D.