By: Daniel Potes

Ti & DoMarshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles’ names• Shakti Devi (Powerful Goddess) and Shri Pranavah (Auspicious Mantra)• Guinnea and Pig• The Two• Vickie and Seymour Morgenstern• Bo and Peep• Ti and Do Marshall Herff Applewhite

(1932-1997)

Bonnie Lu Nettles(1927-1985)

Names of the Group• 1st HIM (Human Individual Metamorphasis)

– Process to help people transform their bodies and prepare to leave the planet.

• Total Overcomers Anonymous– Was the pseudonym they used to release their final

stage of recruitment material.

• Heaven’s Gate– The title that this NRM is most widely known as, and

the name of the website that they left in operation after the mass suicide.

Timeline• 1927 Birth of Nettles.• 1932 Birth of Applewhite.• 1952 Applewhite enrolls in Virginia Union Theological Seminary.• 1973 The Two are the only members of their NRM.• July 1973 The Two come upon a firm realization of their spiritual identities

as the two witnesses decribed in the Book of Revelation.• 1974 by may 1 student has joined the community, a former client named

Sharon form their book store days.• 1974-1975 Applewhite Jailed for stealing a rental car and Sharon’s Credit

Cards. In jail he wrote his first recruitment piece and seems to have become stable.

• 1975 Applewhite apparently stops showing evidence of mental health problems and becomes more centered.

• April 1975 The Two meet with an already existing esoteric group run by Clarence Klug, here they attain many of their original converts in the form of spiritual seekers.

• May 1975 the community now consists of several dozen members.• Late 1975 early 1976 have gathered several hundred followeds in the last 12

months.• 1976 The Two Institute a rigid hierarchical social structure predicated on

their total dominance and control over the religious and social lives of their students.

• 1983 Nettles has her eye surgically removed because of a cancer that they had not noticed.

• 1985 Nettles dies from the cancer that took her eye, Beginning of Applewhite seeing the shedding of the human body as the only way to escape the human condition

• 1992 a “Last call” under the name Total Overcomers Anonymous is released• 1993 TOA makes final offer to gain members, of which they get 20

respondants• 1996 Hale Bopp Comet first appears• 1997 Heaven’s gate ends with a mass suicide in a mansion in california over

the course of 3 days

Cosmology/Mythology

• The Evolutionary Level Above Human (TELAH)

– Otherwise known as The Next Level, synonymous with the Kingdom of heaven or the Kingdom of God

– Considered a tangible place by most of the members of Heaven’s Gate.

– https://youtu.be/AqSZhwu1Rwo?t=11• Luciferians

– “Technologically advanced humans who have retained some of what they learned while in the early training of members of the true Kingdom of God”

– “Have represented themselves to humans as ‘Gods’”

– “Still need to reproduce”-1993 Heaven’s Gate ad in USA Today

– In constant conflict with the Next Level, seeking to tempt humanity away from trying to the Level Above Human

Ritual/Rules

– The Rituals in the beginning of the growth of Heaven’s Gate is described by ex- members as being very boring, with a focus on confronting sexuality and erasing social relationships.

– Check Partners was created after The Two decided to split the movement into groups of two paired sexes together to make them forcibly confront and overcome sexual attractions

– “Self Initiation” the alchemical process of transcending human limits and evolving into beings of light

– Talking during training camps was forbidden in preparation for the mental communication when they evolve to the Next Level of Human Evolution or the Kingdom of Heaven.

Scriptures of importance to Heaven’s gate

• As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.

John 10:15-18

• Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

John 14:12

• He who loves his life will lose it and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life

John 12:25

• Blesses are the dead who died in the LordRevelation 14:13

Beliefs• Believed that Ti & Do we the Father and Jesus respectively. • Ti returned to the heaven’s in 1985 and returned as the pilot of the space ship behind Hale-Bopp• Originally believed in a process of “Self Initiation” an alchemical process of transcending human

limits and evolving into beings of light.• This evolved throughout the religion due to the death of Nettles, after which the only way to

escape earth is by shedding the human body, not alchemically changed.• Before Nettles death viewed it as a Demonstration, which was the first taste of the fact that they

are going to be killed or die as a sacrifice of martyrdom, later morphs into the idea of shedding their human bodies

• The two surviving members of the Mass suicide have continued to keep the website up and running, and have shown a changed belief in suicide as a means of escape

• https://youtu.be/AqSZhwu1Rwo?t=347• https://youtu.be/U0we2lBn3Qw?t=2313

Heaven’s Gate 2

Lalich, J. (2004). Bounded Choice : True Believers and Charismatic Cults. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Milo, P. (2012, May 2). Heaven's Gate Website Still Active. Retrieved October 14, 2015, from http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2012/05/02/heavens-gate-website-still-active/

Chryssides, G. (n.d.). Home. Retrieved October 14, 2015, from http://www.wrs.vcu.edu/profiles/Heaven'sGate.htmZeller, B. (n.d.). Heaven's gate: America's UFO religion.

Cult members, Exit Videos, Rancho Santa Fe, CA, 1997

Chryssides, G. (2011). Heaven's Gate: Postmodernity and popular culture in a suicide group. Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate.

Lalich, J. (2004). Bounded choice true believers and charismatic cults. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Heaven's Gate - How and When It May Be Entered. (n.d.). Retrieved October 14, 2015.