Cult Research - Heaven’s Gate
Heaven’s Gate Cult - Information from the 2020 HBO miniseries Heaven’s Gate: The Cult of Cults
Episode 1 Notes:
Basic overview
Uniforms - Black button down shirt with a patch that says Heaven’s Gate Away Team
“we came from distant space, what your religious literature would call the kingdom of heaven, and we’re about to return”
Mass suicide after 22 years of the cult, 39 deceased.
The Awakening, 1975
From a small oregon town near Newport.
A couple appeared (Ti and Do / “the two” / Bo and Peep / other names) and had a flyer saying a UFO would be coming to get them and they’ll be leaving Earth forever. They had a meeting to share what they knew.
“If you ever entertained the idea of a physical level above the human level you will want to attend this meeting.”
200 people came out to this meeting. The people leading the meeting were Ti and Do. They said they had come to teach the process of becoming a member of the next level.
“When a human has overcome all of his human level activities, a chemical change takes place and he goes through a metamorphosis just exactly as a caterpillar does when he quits being a caterpillar.”
They explained that people would physically change and become alien-like creatures, they would literally get on a physical UFO and leave Earth.
Accounts of attending the meeting
“I felt higher than a kite in this meeting. Euphoric. My girlfriend felt the same thing”
“I felt like I sat in front of the equivalent of Jesus”
They wanted people to agree to go with them, leave behind all of their possessions, and begin “to repair”
People started to go missing. They were told to go to Boulder canyon with camping supplies.
“I was seeking something but I didn’t know what that was” “I was in a spiritual dilemma when they came along”
Seems like a Christian offshoot
Millenarian - Feel that time will be coming to an end. “Planet earth is about the be recycled. Your only chance to survive is to leave with us.” Tend to arise in times of societal stress
A mix of science fiction and christianity - Chariots of the Gods was a best selling book at the time that claimed that ancient religions were started by aliens who came to Earth.
Cult info
Leaders Do and Ti were into musical theater - their names come from the song from Sound of Music. Said they were millions of years old and from outer space.
About Do (Marshall Herff Applewhite)
was a college music professor and performer
He was rumored to be having an affair with one of his male students
His father was a reverend and did not approve of Herff being gay
Herff’s wife divorced him and he left Alabama for Houston
He was going to try to be an opera singer in Houston
Had a psychotic episode during a rehearsal and was brought to the hospital. He met Ti at the hospital there.
Ti took advantage of Do when he was vulnerable.
She was an astrologer and did his chart. She said his natal chart showed they were destined to work together on a huge project, they were soulmates. They were never romantic.
About Ti
an RN
worked with babies at a hospital in Houston
“very entrenched in new age thinking” - astrology / meditation / crystals / ascended beings / channeling dead people / seances / UFOs
Didn’t feel like she belonged here, saw a light in the sky at one point that she thought could have been a UFO and it was here to take her away. Would fantasized about going to different planets.
She got a divorce and left with Do to figure out what she was supposed to be doing with her life. She told her daughter she’d be back once she figured it out and she never came back.
Basic beliefs
Believed you could not achieve this new level of existence once you’re dead - it has to happen while you’re alive so your physical body can transform.
“Your family, don’t forget, are those who are here doing the same thing as you.” Taught followers that their biological family really wasn’t their family
“It’s common for the person who is going through an awakening for their life to begin to fall apart”
“The kingdom of heaven cannot be entered as long as I still have attachments or addictions to the human condition”
“It’s difficult for our friends and loved ones who don’t understand why we do this”
No social structure
Name of their process was “Human Individual Metamorphosis”
No one was in charge of anyone else because it was such an individual process
A nomadic existence, travelling around the country to campgrounds. Asking for donations from churches and communities.
Meetings twice a day - morning and evening
“tuning in to the next level” with a tuning fork tune to Note A and placed at their forehead.
Group was very secretive
Would share information in coded messages left in books at public locations like the post office to direct people where to go to meet up
There were two sociologists who went undercover to study this group, a lot of the information comes from them. Cool as shit.
The leaders didn’t assert their authority. There was no evidence of coercion, manipulating, or brainwashing. It was all about free choice.
They would go out to the desert and just wait. They’d watch the sky for UFOs to come get them. They would have assigned duties to watch the sky in watches.
Some cult members left behind their kids to join this cult. Felt they had to let the past and the people of their past go, so they could work on ascending the people in their past could work on moving on.
One of the interviewees was 10 when her parents left her because they believed they were going to be taken away by a UFO. She was like “literally what the fuck.” “it was like trying to compete with God. Made me feel rather meaningless.”
One of them says she felt bad about leaving her parents behind. “you have to realize that when Jesus met his disciples, he said you have to leave your family behind if you want to surrender to a higher principle.” She truly felt that if she wanted to fully follow this belief she needed to leave behind her loved ones.
Cult members weren’t supposed to be forming “human level” relationships
Ti and Do travel the United States in 1972 working odd jobs and searching for spiritualism, end up in Oregon in 1973.
In Oregon, they “discover” that they are the two witnesses that are put forth in the book of revelations and are destined to be martyred. They will rise from the dead and would ascent up to heaven in a cloud.
The “cloud” is actually a UFO, the people way back when who wrote the bible just didn’t know the word UFO (lol)
They believed they would lead all those who followed them into heaven. This was called The Demonstration.
Saw their task as being technological advisors, not religious gurus.
They felt The Demonstration would be happening imminently.
They later said that when the media attacked them, that was their martyrdom. They went into hiding with a small group of followers as a result.
*One of the interviewers says typical cult members: well educated / from good families / no prior psychological problems. “cults don’t want lonely strange people, they want highly educated individuals who can help run the cult.”
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Episode 2 Notes:
The Chrysalis - 1976-1991
Ti and Do wrote a book called Heaven’s Gate
Began an “intensive classroom training program”
The Classroom - July 1976
Numbers dwindled to 40-50 people.
Meetings were now recorded for “the class”
“Every tiny thing you do, alone or with someone else, is a task to see how you respond, to see if you were ready for the next level. You are striving to be perfect. There are no teachers in the next level. We’re your teachers now.”
The cult created new language according to their beliefs - Home was “Craft” / Money was “sticks” / Office was “Compu-lab / Sex organs were “plumbing” / Job was “Out of Craft Task” / etc.
Changing the language for things meant rewiring understanding of reality because the new words don’t have previous associations. They were also given new names for this purpose.
A single syllable first name and a shared last name “ODY” (RBBODY - “rob-ody”) When they “became adults” they would drop the y to indicate that they had elevated.
They wore uniforms - the same short haircut, same pants and shirts and sneakers
Behavioral guidelines - led to people leaving the group (lol huh). The people who stayed behind were the people who would follow these guidelines, so the group’s fanaticism increased.
Strict obedience - EVERY task was regulated. Even down to the size pancakes could be.
No having private thoughts
No taking action without consulting with check partner - you’d be paired with someone you would not want to be with. You were responsible for checking that you were each following the rules
No lying
No knowingly breaking rules
No music allowed in the group.
No permitting arousal in thought or action
Couples would decide to split up in order to ascend and see each other in a more elevated form in the next level
They followed these rules because they felt it gave them structure and community, they enjoyed these rules because it brought them together and closer to their greater good. They’re working together to overcome something they all struggle with - their “humanness”.
“We were all searching for some good that didn’t exist in the human world. We found it in The Class”
“It’s been tough, but it’s been wonderful”
“We know that we hurt people and we don’t take that lightly. We didn’t want to hurt anyone. Unfortunately it’s the individuals that these vehicles cared for the most are actually the greatest threat to us”
17 steps
Questions to ask yourself (there are more than these, these are all they shared from the text)
Can you follow instructions without adding your own interpretation?
Can you deliver instructions as you receive them or do they change according to your programming?
Do you participate in inconsiderate conversation?
Are you physically clumsy?
Do you halfway complete a task?
Do you put tasks off or procrastinate?
Quotes from Ruffles, one of their publications with members’ thoughts about the ideology
“everyone interprets the truth at their own level of understanding”
“goal is not reached by just learning how to reach it, a goal is reaching by doing what you learned.”
“reality is not something you escape from, reality is something you escape to”
“What lies behind us lies buried, because it is dead”
Ti and Do were afraid they were being tracked by family and ex cult members - this was why they stayed on the move and went to different camp grounds all the time.
One of the cult member’s family members passed away and he inherited a lot of money. This went to the cult and the cult started to rent mansions.
they would have like 15 people in a house but then only have certain people who were allowed to go outside so it wouldn’t be apparent that so many people lived there
A concerned family member contacted the FBI but there wasn’t much they could do because the cult wasn’t violent. There was a parent network led by Nancie Brown, she would try to notify people when she got news of where the cult was.
Ti and Do didn’t like this - they told cult members to not share information like this with their family. They weren’t supposed to have attachments like that anyway.
**Ti was still writing her daughter once a month! She wasn’t following her own rules! They even spoke on the phone, but Do was always listening when they talked. She never wanted to talk about the cult, only about her daughter’s life. She started to get more paranoid and felt she was unsafe.
Cult objective
To turn you into a conformist
To create a new you by breaking down the old you, turning you into a true believer
Convincing the members that they were not human beings, they were aliens living within human shells called Vehicles.
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Episode 3 Notes:
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Episode 4 Notes:
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