heaven's gate: the end? by wendy gale robinson

8/19/2019 Heaven's Gate: The End? by Wendy Gale Robinson

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JCMC 3 (3) December 1997

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Heaven's Gate: The End?

Wendy Gale RobinsonDepartment of Religion

Duke University

School of Journalism and Mass CommunicationUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Table of Contents

AbstractIntroductionWho Were Heaven's Gate?Decoding the Code

AdvertisementKeywords

Apocalypse 2000Is Cyberculture to Blame?

Cyborg: Meat MachineTranscending the BodyOnline Multiplicity

AfterlifeFootnotesReferencesWeb Sites Cited in the ArticleAbout the Author

Hale-Bopp's approach is the"marker" we've been waiting for --

the time for the arrival of the spacecraft

from the Level Above Humanto take us home to "Their World" --

in the literal Heavens.

-- Heaven's Gate Home Page

Abstract

In San Diego on March 26, 1997, the bodies were found of 39 similarly dressed men and women who took their ownlives in a mass suicide. Led by Marshall Applewhite, the Heaven's Gate cult believed that a flying saucer was traveling behind the Hale-Bopp comet. They chose to leave their physical bodies behind to find redemption in an extraterrestrial

"Kingdom of Heaven." The sect also left behind apocalyptic messages in their Rancho Santa Fe mansion and on home pages on the World Wide Web. This paper looks at online material produced by the cult and the media coverage oftheir tragic end, it explores the background of the cult and the science fiction and millennial influences on their beliefs, andit considers the group's connection with cyberculture and some of the questions raised by their mass suicide, which perhaps, as David Potz said in , "promises to be the first great Internet mystery" [ ].Slate (Potz, March 28, 1997)

Introduction

It was late Thursday evening, March 27, 1997, when the first headlines crossed my

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desk at the Raleigh . I had come to expect a certain decorum atthe , but with the Heaven's Gate suicides, the difference in tone was striking: "Cultmembers were deeply into cyberspace," "Cult leader believed in space aliens andapocalypse," "Tapes left by cult suggest comet was the sign to die" [

]. At last, I thought, the press has found the bad-news story with anInternet angle that it has been waiting for.

News and Observer N&O

(Nando.net,March 28, 1997)

Since the first Internet covers of and in 1992-93 that legitimized andsensationalized the Internet, followed by the mainstream popularity of the World Wide

Web, the Net has been vilified as often as it's been hailed as a panacea to the world's ills, a late twentieth-centuryelectronic Eldorado.[ ] In practice, of course, the Net is in itself neither a utopian nor a dystopian place, but rather ismade up of people who for the most part are sitting in front of monitors and keyboards exchanging commonplaceinformation a bit more conveniently, if often with a sense of "virtual community" [ ] within "cyberspace"[ ]. Nevertheless like William Gibson who coined the term, the press seems deeply ambivalent aboutcyberspace and its populace. As Joshua Quittner wrote in "Life and Death on the Web" in , "Every time this countryextrudes any significant bit of evil at its fringes my editors dispatch me to the Internet to look for its source" [

].

Time Newsweek

1

(Rheingold, 1993)(Gibson, 1984)

Time(Quittner,

April 7, 1997, 47)

The Heaven's Gate techno-deaths delivered the sensationalist goods. [ ] continued, "Here wasobsession, delusion and mass suicide played out in multimedia and hypertext -- a horror, finally, best observed online."Yet most of the early reports spent disappointingly little time looking at Heaven's Gate online. There was abundantcoverage of the curiosities -- the castrations, the purple shrouds, the comet, -- but little about the individualcult members as celebrated Webmasters. It seemed to be enough that the group had a Web presence business and usedthe online medium among other media to disseminate messages to declare the Net guilty by association.

(Quittner, 1997)

The X-Files

The virtual community reacted with outrage.[ ] The suicides and the media's blinkered condemnation came fresh on theheels of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which had been argued with mixed success before the SupremeCourt on March 19 (but which was overturned on June 26 [ ]). A groan passed across the Net asmembers of the community wondered whether the actions of the cultists might influence public policy at a particularlyvulnerable time, when free speech and openness, and the Net's importance as an electronic town hall, was a matter of public debate [(e.g., in 1996-97, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's , the

, and ]). In "Deaths in the Family" on HotWired, Jon Katz said:

2

(Reno v. ACLU)

Blue Ribbon Campaign Citizens InternetEmpowerment Coalition 24 Hours of Democracy

The killings gave our fearful guardians in politics and mainstreammedia yet another new Net phobia to warn Americaabout. Cultists momentarily pushed asidepornographers as the demonic and threatening offspring of new technology.The Internet,just last week an interstate highway for perverts, was transformed for a few days into anatural breedingground for fanatics and zealots [ ].(Katz,March 31, 1997)

Writing for , George Johnson similarly noted in "From Porn to Cults, the Net Looks Nasty":The New York Times

For the techno-libertarians intent on keeping the abstract duchy calledcyberspace the freest of all lands, the last fewmonths have been a nightmare of badvibrations rippling through what the electronic elite derisively calls the "oldmedia." Every day, it seems, television newscasts and newspapers carry reportsof unspeakable acts conducted over theInternet. Pedophiles and maybe even prisonerstrade pornography and tips on kidnapping, while trying to seducechildren in electronicchat-rooms. . . . From listening to some people's fears, one would think thatInternet bandwidth hadincreased to the point where a distant evil hacker could downloadyour mind [ ].(Johnson, March 30,1997)

Rather than informing the public and setting the record straight, the singular Heaven's Gate incident was exploited by thetraditional media to fan the flames of suspicion much as pornography had been used all along.[ ] The Net of dangerous pictures became the Net of dangerous ideas. The media, which over the past year or so had been colonizing andcommercializing the Web, and therefore didn't even seem to be acting in its own best interest, let us down. Again [ ]. As Highersource.org, one of the best known parodies of the cult that quickly sprouted on the Net, put it:

3

(Rheingold, 1996)

The media spin on the suicide of religious cult members is, in a word,inexcusable. Television, radio and print mediasources have reported this as if the cultdid all their recruiting online and killed themselves by ingesting poison computer

parts.The cult was around for 22 years, LONG before the web. They only recently began makingsome money makingVERY bad web pages ( ).Highersource.org, March 1997

A vocal segment of the online community seemed to hold the group in disdain because they did less than stellar Webwork in terms of graphic and programming sophistication. While the term "Webmaster" often has little practical meaning,the fact that these apparently minor-league talents represented the majority of people putting up Web pages was felt to be insulting, although the democratization of publishing wrought by the Web does mean precisely this: that anyone withsome pages written in HTML can claim Web expertise. Morgan Davis, operations director of one of San Diego's largestInternet providers, typified this attitude when he said, "They're rather mediocre. . . . Their art work is kind of amateurish.The layout and typesetting is not cutting-edge. It really looks like anything anyone could have done in their spare time" [ ].[ ](as cited in CNN, March 28, 1997) 4

These " " link tofurtherinformation on the Heaven's Gate home page,

which serves as the cult's suicidenote andmission statement.

keys to the kingdom

Web, the Net has been vilified aselectronic Eldorado.[ ] In practicmade up of people who for theinformation a bit more convenient[ ]. Nevertheless licyberspace and its populace. Asextrudes any significant bit of evil

].

1

(Gibson, 1984)

April 7, 1997, 47)

The Heaven's Gate techno-deathobsession, delusion and mass suiYet most of the early reports spencoverage of the curiosities -- thecult members as celebrated Webthe online medium among other

The virtual community reacted wiheels of the Communications DeCourt on March 19 (but whichmembers of the community wonvulnerable time, when free speec public debate [(e.g., in 1996-97,

, andEmpowerment Coalition 24

The killings gave our fearful gabout . Cult is ts momentarily pThe Internet,just last week anground for fanatics and zealot

Writing for The New York Times

For the techno-libertarians intmonths have been a nightmaremedia." Every day, it seems,Internet. Pedophiles and maychildren in electronicchat-rooincreased to the point where a

Rather than informing the publictraditional media to fan the flame pictures became the Net of dangcommercializing the Web, and th[ ]. As Highers

put it:(Rheingold, 1996)

The media spin on the suicidesources have reported this as

parts.The cult was around forVERY bad web pages (Higher

A vocal segment of the online cowork in terms of graphic and prothe fact that these apparently min be insulting, although the democrsome pages written in HTML caInternet providers, typified this atThe layout and typesetting is not[(as cited in CNN, March 28, 1




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Still the scornful Webmasters were hardly alone. With the notable exception of the millenarians, nobody wanted to beassociated with Heaven's Gate, not Nike, not the gay community, not San Diegans, Californians, astronomers, the UFOcommunity, or Trekkies [ ; ;

]. Even other cultists were backpedaling [ ]. Heaven's Gate's strange amalgam of beliefs made them the fringe of the fringe. In remarks that were widely quoted, the ultimate head of CNN himself, TedTurner said: "It's a good way to get rid of a few nuts, you know, you gotta look at it that way. Well, they did it peacefully. At least they didn't go in like those S.O.B.s who go to McDonald's or post offices and shoot a lot of innocent people and then shoot themselves. At least they just went out and did it to themselves" [

]. Gallows humor seemed to be the main statement made by their deaths.

(News and Observer, March 30, 1997 Nando.net, April 1, 1997 Wambaugh, April 7,1997) (Kendall, March 30, 1997)

(Reuters, March 29, 1997)

Heaven's Gate quickly became a cyberculture in-joke.[ ] By the time I was invited to speak on the topic ten days later [ ], friends were feeding me one-liners. It took all the restraint I could muster not to use the presentation as an opportunity to get my start as a stand-up comic with puns playing on Unix and eunuchs andreferences in questionable taste to keeping up with the "Joneses" ( ). But the incongruity between these shallow jokes and sensationalist press coverage and the brutal reality of 39 people choosing to killthemselves upon a sign from the heavens was startling. Here was a group that scorned mortality, who considered their bodies to be nothing more than disposable shells, for whom the most profound issues of life and death and faith must've been part of their daily existence. Yet they seem ridiculous to many of us, whether we consider ourselves to be membersof a Net community or not.

5(Robinson, April 8, 1997)

Heaven's Gate Humor, 1997

The gap between us and them in itself struck me as interesting in both the Freudian, cathartic sense [ ] andin the way that [ ] uses Kenneth Burke's conception of the tragic and comic frames tosimultaneously embrace the open and closed aspects of the apocalypse. Yes, laughter provides a safety valve for theaggression we feel toward the members of the sect for their apparently complete lack of basic common sense, but it alsohelps us accept the enormity of the end-times that await us all. Heaven's Gate didn't shrink from this reality; theyembraced The End. The headline of their suicidal home page in bold print announced [italics added]: "Red Alert -- Hale-Bopp brings to Heaven's Gate . . . . "

(Freud, 1922)(Stephen O'Leary, 1994)

closure

What is it about these people, their chosen end, and what they believed and practiced that touched a common chord?Why were we so eager to dismiss them out of hand?[ ] To what can we attribute their thorough alienation, I wondered.After all, while many of us thought that Hale-Bopp was memorably spectacular, few were inclined to read the comet asan omen -- or did we? And do we today view Applegate's followers less as flesh-and-blood people with whom wemight feel a sympathetic human connection than as representatives of dangerous cults, as signs of the coming millennium,and not least of all, as a case-in-point of what's wrong with cyberculture or, conversely, how the media typifiescyberculture?

6

Who Were Heaven's Gate?

The facts are well known. The group lived together in a large immaculate house inRancho Santa Fe, a wealthy community in San Diego. On March 26, 1997, the bodies of 21 women and 18 men, ranging in age from 26-72, were discovered invarious stages of decomposition. Several days before, they had ingested applesauceor pudding laced with barbiturates and a shot of vodka, and they had submitted tosuffocation from plastic bags placed over their heads. They were identically dressedin unisex black shirts, pants, and Nikes, and had purple shrouds placed across theirfaces. Many of the men had been castrated. Nevertheless still frustrated with their bodies, they chose to leave their "earthly containers" behind in San Diego to joinaliens who would take them to the Next Level with a newly embodied life. Theextraterrestrials were believed to reside in a starship traveling behind the Hale-Boppcomet.

Much more than a Net cult, Heaven's Gate was a UFO cult. Marshall Herff Applewhite, known as "Do" (formerly"Bo"), and Bonnie Lu Nettles, known as "Ti" (formerly "Peep"), met in Texas and formed Heaven's Gate in the early1970s.[ ] The group settled in the Southwest where they lived in seclusion, eventually attracting as many as 1000followers [ ]. Do and Ti preached that they were Christ-like extraterrestrials who had takenhuman form. As early as 1975, Applewhite and Nettles (who passed on from natural causes in 1985) told of a spaceshipthat would spirit true believers away toward a higher level of existence [ ]. The Two as they calledthemselves, after the "Two Lampstands" prophesied in the Bible, always drew as much on science fiction as on Biblical prophecy. Their early chronicler, Robert Balch, wrote about the group circa 1975:

7(Niebuhr, March 28, 1997)

(Phelan, 1976)

Claiming that [a] biblical cloud referred to a UFO, Bo and Peep promised eternallife in the "literal heavens" to anyonewilling to devote "100 percent ofhis total energy" to overcoming his attachments to the human level. Over aperiod of sixmonths Bo and Peep recruited over 200 believers, and for a brief time theUFO cult was America's most publicized newreligious movement. . . . Bo was a tall,greying, slightly overweight figure with remarkable stage presence and steel-blue

is the sect's Web presence busines s. Clien ts included the San Diego PoloClub, amail-order music catalog purveying early

Madonna, and a New Age Christian companyspecializing in inspirational messages (see Keep

the Faith's on Heaven's Gate).

Higher Source

statement

Much more than a Net cult, Heav"Bo"), and Bonnie Lu Nettles, kno1970s.[ ] The group settled in thfollowers [human form. As early as 1975, Apthat would spirit true believers awthemselves, after the "Two Lamps prophecy. Their early chronicler,

7(Niebuhr, March 28, 1

Claiming that [a] biblical cloudwilling to devote "100 percent omonths Bo and Peep recruited oreligious movement. . . . Bo was a tall,




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eyeswhich he could use effectively to captivate an audience. By all accounts Bo wasextremely persuasive. A few ex-members claimed their minds went blank in hispresence, and one man insisted that he saw a vivid image of a UFO themoment Bo touchedhim on the shoulder. The experience was so real that even long after defecting, theman continuedto believe he had actually put his hand on the spaceship's landing gear [( )].Balch, 1982, 21-24

Heaven's Gate flourished in the Southwest, where UFO sightings have been common since the postwar boom in aviationand the government's use of the region for nuclear testing. UFO mythology resonates strongly in contemporary popularculture. Concerns over the atomic bomb as well as hopes and fears that we aren't alone in the universe have spurredcountless Hollywood films and television shows in which beings from outer space warn the people of earth of impendingdisaster. H.G. Wells in his late phase, notably the apocalyptic (1933), is a major literary

influence. Another well-acknowledged influence is the 1947 UFO sighting and rumored cover-up that took place nearthe airforce base in Roswell, New Mexico, where some believe two alien starships collided. Located northwest of LasVegas, the inspiration for last summer's is Area 51, thought to be the government's top-secret installationfor investigating flying saucers.[ ] The members of Heaven's Gate took such science fact and fiction seriously; indeed,they watched and religiously.[ ]

The Shape of Things to Come

Men in Black 8

The X-Files Star Trek 9

The group recruited with pamphlets and other print publications for two decades before moving to California andactively using the Internet to transmit messages in the mid-1990s. Members of the cult opened a Web consulting business, (a name that can be assumed to be intended to evoke both bodily liberation and HTML sourcecodes). Despite what the Net community thought of their work in retrospect, in Southern California they had areputation strong enough to attract a client list that included the San Diego Polo Club and Kushner-Locke, a Hollywood production company. Their work shows some programming expertise in that they used Java, VRML, audio and videoclips, and advanced HTML that many mom-and-pop Web businesses did not provide in late 1996-early 1997.Similarly, Higher Source was ahead of the curve with using meta tags in inventive ways, in their case for evangelical purposes.

Higher Source

Members of the cult believed they were leaving their bodies behind in a chrysalis that would take them to TheEvolutionary Level Above Human (TELAH). According to Balch, these beliefs date back to the early period:

Ultimately the Two held out the promise of eternal life at the "Level AboveHuman." There . . . their followers would become . . . complete withandrogynous bodies forever free of disease, decay, and death. Eventually they alsomight beable to help with a harvest in some distant part of the universe, or even, likeJesus and the Two, "do the Christ trip" onanother garden [ ].(Balch,1982, 27)

From the beginning, then, the group made plans to leave this planet and their bodies, which they called "shells" and"vehicles," for new life in a more evolved corner of the universe. The sign they were waiting for came with Hale-Boppand its ghostly companion vehicle.

On Nov. 14, 1996, Houston-based amateur astronomer Chuck Shramek phoned Art Bell's "Coast to Coast" to say that

he had taken a photograph of a mysterious object traveling behind Hale-Bopp.[ ] Art Bell's popular radio programdiscusses matters of interest to the UFO community. The next night a guest on Bell's show, Courtney Brown, directorof the Farsight Institute in Atlanta, asserted that three professional psychics associated with his organization had detectedthe companion vehicle and found it to be inhabited by extraterrestrials. Although there are conflicting reports as towhether Shramek's call was intended as a hoax or was simply a mistake, the sighting of Hale-Mary, as the companionspaceship came to be known, has been widely attributed to have been enough to break Heaven's Gate's holding patternand to have perhaps triggered the 39 cult members' exit from their mortal containers. O'Leary is among those who pointout that the "suicide of the Heaven's Gate sect was timed to coincide with the nearest approach to Earth of the cometHale-Bopp -- a celestial event that, like many comets throughout history, has been greeted in apocalyptic circles as aharbinger of cosmic change" [ ].

10

(O'Leary, April 1997)

There is no question that when first reporting the Rancho Santa Fe suicides, the press acted irresponsibly by hastily pointing the finger at the Net although many factors influenced the decision of Applewhite and his followers to end theirlives. And the follow-up coverage was never given the prominence of the first few days in which the Net was implicated by the association with UFOs and cult mania. The general public probably still associates Heaven's Gate with the Net

and thinks that the Rancho Santa Fe suicides somehow happened because the cult members spent too much time inspooky cyberspace.

The mass media based broad assumptions about the group on the "fact" that they were part of the online community andtherefore were taken to be representative of cyberculture. Whether we accept that premise or consider the Heaven'sGate cult members' connection with the Internet to be tenuous at best -- as just another medium they used for proselytizing if also for commerce -- there is nothing to be lost by examining the online evidence, even if it's not difficultto see that the blame, if any, for their deaths should be shared. In addition to bringing out the significance of celestialinfluences, O'Leary notes, "Heaven's Gate gives a new and terrifying significance to previously innocuous media productswhich had long enjoyed what are commonly, and unthinkingly, referred to as 'cult followings': the 'X-Files,' 'Star Trek,'and 'Star Wars'" [ ]. Perhaps the Net encourages pop idolatry. Perhaps the Net encouragesaddictive behavior. Perhaps any number of assumptions, which is all they can be without examining the evidence first-

(O'Leary, April 1997)




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hand. In the hope that it might be illuminating to explore the ways in which the members of the sect were typical oratypical of the Net and its virtual community, a consideration of the Heaven's Gate Website is in order.

Decoding the Code

Much has been made of the liberatory potential of hypertext, of its undoing anddecentering of the author, authority, and linearity itself [(e.g., ;

; ; ; ]. The World Wide Web,

however, offers other avenues of exploration. Unlike how we interpret the printedword, with the Web we aren't restricted to the foregrounded text since we can look beneath to see what's embedded in the computer code or literal subtext. We can, inother words, decode the code or do a digital deconstruction of pages written inHTML to uncover what they reveal or suggest. As it so happens, the material belowthe surface of the Heaven's Gate pages is unusually rich.

Bolter, 1990 Malthrop,1991 Landow, 1992 Lanham, 1993 Gaggi, 1997)

Nevertheless, in terms of intentionality, the subtext of the Heaven's Gate pages is every bit as deliberate as the messages that might otherwise be considered the "preferredreading" [ ]. Already a subculture in the sense of being a cult, Applewhite'sfollowers were cannily in control of their messages on several levels although obviouslytheir audience reception could not be prescribed [ ; ;

; ]. It's difficult to accept the cynical view that Heaven's Gate might've staged their suicidesfor laughs or as a publicity stunt. Although Heaven's Gate's suicide page is surely one of the best read open letters to the Net community, its message has proven to be largely incomprehensible despite its intratextual redundancy.[ ] Hale-

Bopp did not bring closure to Heaven's Gate.

(Hall, 1980)

(Hebdige, 1979 Fish, 1980Radway, 1984 Fiske, 1989)

11

Access the home page of the site and view the source code.[ ] (If your browser is Netscape, go to themenu bar, choose View and then select Document Source). At the top and bottom is text otherwise hidden from viewcontained within the meta tag (a.k.a. ). The meta tag is used by some people making Web pages, particularlycommercial sites, to supply information for search engines. Some search engines, such as AltaVista and Infoseek, gatherinformation by pulling up the first few lines of code from a file. The reasoning goes that if you want your site to float to thetop when a user does a search, you stand a better chance of being found if you control what words the search enginefinds. Just as a user chooses keywords when running a search query, you as the Web page designer can help thingsalong by providing keywords to match the expected query.

Heaven's Gate 12

This is fine in principal, but Heaven's Gate took keywording and developed it to an unusual degree. They glutted searchengines in a form of spamming or sending out junk mail on the Internet. Using the meta tag this way is considered poor Netiquette, or bad manners online and an improper use of bandwidth.[ ] But the group's use is consistent with how

they used other media. Like many evangelical groups eager to spread their message, they used direct mail techniques, broadcast and video, posters, books, pamphlets, and word of mouth. Heaven's Gate's use of the meta tag is in keepingwith their media suffusion. It's worth pointing out, however, that just as most of us in the general public don't completelywelcome unsolicited mail, the cult's "spamdexing" was frowned on by what we can consider to be the Net community.Their misuse of HTML put the cult at odds with the accepted practices of the Net rather than in accord. Furthermore,Heaven's Gate not only placed these meta tags at the top of their pages, they also ran them along the bottom for reasonsthat will be discussed shortly but that serve little practical purpose in terms of search engines.

13

Advertisement

When we examine the meta tag at the top of the Heaven's Gate home page, the first information that comes to view is anadvertisement that was posted to a wide variety of newsgroups:

Heaven's Gate

How and When the Door to the Physical Kingdom Level Above Human May Be Entered

Organized Religions Are Killers of SoulsUFOs and Space Aliens -- Sorting Good from BadFinal Warning for Possible Survivors

-- www.heavensgate.com ( )Heaven's Gate

The recruitment ad lays out the four basic tenets of Applewhite's teachings:

1. That the physical body can be left behind for TELAH in which the inviolate spirit will live on at a higherevolutionary level,

2. That traditional religion is untrustworthy,3. That escape is forthcoming through alien abduction, and4. That this is the final warning.

1.

2.3.4.

The Website contains "secretcodes" used as keywords for search engines and

forproselytizing purposes. To see these codeshidden within the meta tag, click on thegraphicand display the source code of the cult's home page on you r browser. Wi thNetscape, chooseView on the menu bar, then Document Source.The words excerpted belowappear behind the

top and bottom of most pages on the site.

Heaven's Gate

; ]. It'for laughs or as a publicity stunt. Net community, its message has

Bopp did not bring closure to He

Radway, 1984 Fiske, 1989)

Access the home page of themenu bar, choose View and thencontained within the meta tag (a.commercial sites, to supply inforinformation by pulling up the firsttop when a user does a search, yfinds. Just as a user chooses keyalong by providing keywords to

He

This is fine in principal, but Heavengines in a form of spamming or Netiquette, or bad manners onlin

they used other media. Like man broadcast and video, posters, bowith their media suffusion. It's wowelcome unsolicited mail, the culTheir misuse of HTML put the cHeaven's Gate not only placed ththat will be discussed shortly but

Advertisement

When we examine the meta tag aadvertisement that was posted to

Heaven's Gate

How and When the Door

Organized Religions AreUFOs and Space Aliens -Final Warning for Possib

-- www.heavensgate.com (Hea

The recruitment ad lays out the f

That the physical body caevolutionary level,That traditional religion isThat escape is forthcominThat this is the final warnin




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The latter was a common theme following the death of Nettles. The ending of her life from cancer instead of from alienabduction proved difficult to explain to the faithful. Wojcik notes that after Nettles' death Heaven's Gate disappeared fornearly a decade until May 27, 1993, when they "placed an ad in entitled 'UFO Cult Resurfaces with FinalOffer,' which declared that societal institutions and mainstream religions are controlled by a conspiracy involving Satan" [ ]. When they re-emerged, it was in crisis mode.

USA Today

(Wojcik, 1997, 182)

Heaven's Gate was a doomsday cult with a predilection for conspiracy theory, views they vigorously disseminated. Sixty-two of the group's Usenet postings from , ranging from alt.bible.prophecy to alt.blasphemy thatdate from mid-1996, can be accessed through Deja News. The maintains a large collection of

, including videotapes and advertisements such as the ad that cost nearly$30,000 [ ]. The ,"Time to Die for God?," which was posted to a number of newsgroups, can be found on the Pathfinder site. Earlier in 1995, they posted their philosophieson the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (WELL), but discontinued after being flamed by members [

].

[email protected] Post

"Heaven's Gate" Documents USA Today(Bayles & O'Driscoll, March 28, 1997) Heaven's Gate Manifesto

(Guglielmo, March 31,1997)

The Heaven's Gate group's cross-posting did not endear them to the Net community. Indeed, the cult can be consideredguilty of deviating from at least the first five of what [ ] have defined as the seven"Standards of Conduct on Usenet." However, it seems as though Heaven's Gate never felt an obligation to observe thetacit rules of the Net; rather, it was the Net community that was supposed to come around. There is nothing in theirliterature and the interviews with surviving cult members to support the idea that they felt part of cyberculture or that theInternet was anything more than a digital bulletin board on which to affix their messages. The communal joy ofconnecting, sharing, flaming, ranting that many people associate with what it means to be online apparently was not partof the cult members' experience or interests. In other words, there was no interactivity. Heaven's Gate's messages areone-way, authoritarian. Applewhite, presumably, talks at the world, preaching, proselytizing. Submission is the expected

response, not dialogue. In "'Un-Homey' Potential in the Public Discourse of Heaven's Gate," Robert Glenn Howardnotes:

(McLaughlin, Osborne, & Smith, 1995)

The Heaven's Gate group's newsgroup "recruitment" communicationsdisplay a static and deterministic rhetoric. Railingagainst the bodily manifestations ofhuman beings, they developed a belief set that allowed them to view suicide as a

positiveexperience. This attitude failed to effect large groups of individuals on the Internetbecause, for the most part,their rhetoric failed to attempt any sort of persuasion. Intheir e-mail posts, they made no real attempt to persuade anyoneof anything. They simplydogmatically asserted their version of the truth [ ].(Howard, 1997, 51)

Nor does Heaven's Gate seem to have experienced the medium as a new religious agora. The potential for participatoryaffirmation called "the ritual view of communication" by [ ] and celebrated by those who writeon the Internet's interfaith networking potential [ ; ; ; ]similarly wasn't valued by Heaven's Gate. Posting information on the Net doesn't seem to have been any more meaningfulto the members of the cult than buying a newspaper ad, although obviously the Net was quite a bit less expensive. Thegroup wasn't "of" the Net from lack of interest as well as ostracism, which likely fed each other. Heaven's Gate was

alienated from the virtual community that they in turn alienated by failing to observe the social contract.

(James W. Carey, 1975)(Davis, 1995 Brasher, 1996 O'Leary, 1996 Cobb, 1998, in press)

Keywords

The next set of words within the meta tag is a list of keywords used for search engines. Strung together in this form, thekeywords resemble chanting. If you scroll to the bottom of the source code, you'll see two more lists, the first in a metatag, the other colored black so that it isn't visible against the background. On the home page, they run behind theforegrounded text in the blank space at the bottom (below the footer and information on how to order Applewhite's book). The lists are provided below:

Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's GateHeaven's Gate Heaven's Gate ufo ufoufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo space alienspace alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien spacealien spacealien space alien space alien space alien extraterrestrial extraterrestrialextraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrialextraterrestrial extraterrestrialextraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrialextraterrestrialextraterrestrial misinformation misinformation misinformationmisinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation

misinformation misinformationmisinformation misinformation misinformation freedom freedom freedom freedom freedomfreedomfreedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom second coming second coming secondcoming second coming secondcoming second coming second coming second coming second comingsecond coming angels angels angels angels angels angelsangels angels angels angels endend times times end times end times end times end times end times end times end times endtimesend times.

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Life After Death, Luciferian, Luciferians, Meditation,Members of the Next Level, Messiah, Metamorphosis, Metaphysical,Millennium,Misinformation, Mothership, Mystic, Next Level, Non Perishable, Non Temporal, OlderMember, Our Lords Return,Out of Body Experience, Overcomers, Overcoming, Past Lives,Prophecy, Prophecy Fulfillment, Rapture, Reactive Mind,Recycling the Planet,Reincarnation, Religion, Resurrection, Revelations, Saved, Second Coming, Soul, SpaceAlien, Spacecraft,Spirit, Spirit Filled, Spirit Guide, Spiritual, Spiritual Awakening,Star People, Super Natural, Telepathy, The Remnant, The Two,Theosophy, Ti and Do, Truth,Two Witnesses, UFO, Virginity, Walk-ins, Yahweh, Yeshua, Yoda, Yoga ( ).Heaven's Gate

The same information can be found in the source code of , written by Marshall Applewhite, and other Websites made by the cult. After examining the hidden text, what comes throughloud and clear for this interpreter is thorough alienation:

How and When "Heaven's Gate" May Be Entered

1. The entire first section is about being rescued byextraterrestrials who are envisioned as New Age angels come to set true believers free in the second coming before the end times. This apocalyptic vision is reinforced by other Heaven's Gate writings posted on the Net.While most of us view alien abduction with a mixture of skepticism and abhorrence, to Heaven's Gate suchescape was felt to be affirmative. Life on this planet is fallen and redemption can only come with the next cycle.The words in the second section reinforce this idea: e.g., "life after death," "past lives," "resurrection," "star people." Since [ , flying saucers have often been considered to be manifestations of modernmythology, the archetype of cosmic intelligence we call God, not unlike Zeus appearing before Danaë as ashower of gold or the experience of Moses at the burning bush. Like many UFO cults, Heaven's Gate fervently pointed to passages in the Bible that could be interpreted as proof of extraterrestrial visitation. In this sense, thegroup happily anticipated their release and demise through alien abduction, even to the extent of taking outabduction life insurance in the amount of $1 million per cult member [ ]. To see theirtaped suicide messages and to read their exit statements is to witness unshakable belief expressed as smugcertainty: they really thought they were going to a level above the rest of us lowly earthlings and were about to

embark on the ride of their lives. They don't show any remorse or concern for the people they left behind.

Abduction Mythology and Reification of Alienation:

(Jung, 1964)]

(NandoNet, March 30, 1997)

2. A number of the terms above suggest a Cartesian or Gnostic mind/ body split: e.g., the entire first section and "abductees," "eunuch," "genderless," "out of body," and other suchterms in the second. The Heaven's Gate cult members were not people who liked their bodies. Their unisex dressand castrations have been well-chronicled.

Alienation from the Self and Embodiment:

3. Again, the entire first section is about leaving the planet. Muchof the second is about mundane corruption, the apocalypse, and the "Next Level." In light of their suicides, astandard reading of alienation seems self-evident. The cult members obviously were estranged from society.

Alienation from the World in which They Lived:

4. Toosimply put, the French Marxian tradition from Sartre and Ellul through Barthes to Deleuze and Baudrillard holdsthat the capitalist system turns human beings into cogs in the machine. By becoming part of the mechanistic process, we lose our humanity and free will and accept naturalistic falsehoods that are intended to keep us fromthe truth (i.e., "false consciousness"). Consequently in the postmodern world simulated reality has replacedgenuine reality. While an existential/postmodern reading of Heaven's Gate springs partially from their writing, itlargely can be read into the subtext of their subtext. The cult members were deluded; they believed that thefantastic was true. Yoda, for instance, a character, is lumped together with the Messiah in the secondhalf of the meta-tag repetitions. From this standpoint, Heaven's Gate is a singular instance of the pervasive"Disneyfication" of contemporary culture [ ].They believed they were entering a pop cultureKingdom of Heaven, not unlike belief in Elvis sightings.[ ] Reality and its semblance, scripture and popularculture have been conflated to such an extent that the meaning of life, should there be any more master narratives,has become pathologically skewed. Furthermore, the extremity of their fantasy life tends to both normalize the less bizarre aspects of their beliefs and social existence, which would be otherwise deemed quite bizarre, andconversely to exaggerate what's ordinary, such as the Nikes and spare change in their pockets [

; ]. It comes as no surprise that the people who joined Heaven's Gate would beattracted to the Net and digital culture in which it can be difficult to distinguish real life from virtual life. To paraphrase [ ], reality wasn't their "best window."

Existential Alienation or the Dissociation Wrought by the Mechanistic Modern/Postmodern World:

Star Wars

(Baudrillard, 1981)14

(Morse, March28, 1997 CNN, April 7, 1997)

(Sherry Turkle, 1996)

Their alienation communicates itself to us. We do not feel warmly toward Heaven's Gate; they tend to incite us tomockery. Wojcik says that this reaction on the Net following their 1996 spamming contributed to the cult members'decision to leave their earthly shells: "The group's beliefs were generally ignored or ridiculed on the Internet and thisresponse was interpreted by believers as a sign that they should begin to prepare to return to their home in the heavens, because 'the weeds of humanity' had taken over earth's garden" [ ].(Wojcik, 1997, 182)

Their messages, then, transmitted through many forms of media in addition to the Internet -- which includes the secretcodes designed for machines, which signify perhaps nothing more than a message in a virtual bottle since for the most part the subtext wasn't "consciously" picked up by either search-engine bots or human beings -- with one notableexception that will be discussed shortly, were ignored. Since Heaven's Gate was aware of the poor reception of theirmessages, we may assume that part of their intent in providing the subtextual or subliminal text within the meta tags was




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performative. The codes were meant to be shared, sung among themselves, a wall of words, a private understanding. Bytuning out the world, they could find strength and solace in each other. It was Heaven's Gate against corrupt, fallen,despicably "mammalian" humanity.

Apocalypse 2000

While the assortment of marginalized beliefs Heaven's Gate brought together wasstrange, the cult didn't emerge from a vacuum. They saw themselves as martyrs, as

part of the tradition of Masada, Christian saints, self-flagellating monks, and other true believers who put faith and a sense of mission before self-preservation and self-interest( ), however much these values are out of step with thereigning ethos of the 1990s. There have long been (arguably false) prophets who preached about the coming of The End and End Times, particularly around majoringresses such as a new century or millennium. The group's desire to leave their bodiesalso draws on the Western metaphysical tradition.

Our Position Against Suicide

As previously stated, Applewhite preached that he and Nettles had been reincarnatedfrom The Evolutionary Level Above Human (TELAH). They came as dual entitieswho had assumed human form, i.e., extraterrestrial messiahs who were "doing theChrist trip." Their mission on the planet was to warn the people of Earth about itscoming end. In a scenario not unlike a [ ] radio script, the onlyescape for their followers was to leave their human shells behind and hitch a ride to thegalaxy aboard the spacecraft traveling behind the Hale-Bopp comet, itself a sign of the

coming apocalypse. But however much their separation of mind and body with a sprinkling of New Age mysticism maysound like a variation of Cartesianism or Gnosticism, they weren't seeking transcendence per se. The cult membersthought that they were literally, not just metaphorically, leaving their bodies behind to become newly embodied as aliensor beings higher on the evolutionary scale, much as Applewhite claimed, but in reverse. See, for example, this passagefrom "Heaven's Gate 'Away Team' Returns to Level Above Human in Distant Space" on the cult's Website:

(Douglas Adams, 1985)

The Kingdom of God, the Level Above Human, is a physical world, where theyinhabit physical bodies. However, those bodies are merely containers, suits of clothes --the true identity (of the individual) is the soul or mind/spirit residing inthat"vehicle." The body is merely a tool for that individual's use -- when it wearsout, he is issued a new one (

).Exit Press

Release

Perhaps needless to say, their belief in cosmic eco-bodily recycling is solidly heretical in terms of mainstream WesternChristian thought, whether or not Biblical scripture is cited as evidence. Rather than Christian, these beliefs not only callto mind routine science fiction but reincarnation, Egyptian mystery cults, theosophy, and other forms of Orientalism thatthe West construes as decadent and "Eastern" [ ; ; ] although without --

indeed, deeply dissociated from -- the sensuality generally associated with exoticism.

(Said, 1978 Gilman, 1979 Torgovnick, 1990)

The Heaven's Gate group was Other in still other ways. The press gleefully uncovered Applewhite's checkered past and problems with homosexuality in the restrictive American South of the 1950s [ ;

]. There has been much armchair psychologizing about what might've driven this son of a Texas preacher to become an evangelist of the anti-body. Much of this line of thought holds that because he hated his sexuality and themisfortunes it brought him, Applewhite looked to the heavens for The Answer. While we'll never be able to pinpoint theorigin of Applewhite's calling, surviving cult members tell of strict aestheticism and celibacy, and ultimately castration, of purifying the body to prepare it for a return to TELAH. Androgyny was the norm. In their last days on the planet, manyof Applewhite's followers made tapes of their final mortal thoughts. The following is an excerpt from the "Earth ExitStatement: Why We Must Leave at this Time," of Glnody, who gives the renunciation of the body a biotech prosthetictwist:

(Chua-Eoan, April 7, 1997 Daniel, April14, 1997)

These "lower forces" have succeeded in totally addicting humans tomammalian behavior. Everything from ads fortoothpaste to clothing elevates humansexuality. Being from a genderless world, this behavior is extremely hideous to us.Evenif we go on an outing as harmless as visiting the zoo, the tour guides lace theircommentary with sexualinnuendoes, even when the group they are addressing is full ofsmall children. Even the medical profession promotessexuality. Procedures such asliposuction, breast enlargements, and even sex-change operations are considered perfectlyacceptable, but ask a physician to neuter your vehicle for the sake of the Kingdom ofHeaven and you will more thanlikely be referred to a psychologist who will help you"get in touch with your true sexual desires." It is inconceivable tomost humansthat you could make such a request and be of sound mind ( ).Glnody, March 19, 1997

From the unsympathetic point of view of [ ], co-discoverer of the comet and an outspokenadvocate for scientific reason and against superstition, the Heaven's Gate cult was utterly misguided. For Hale, "for all its beauty . . . [Hale-Bopp] is a dirty snowball that's orbiting the sun. Nothing more. It has no influence on earthly events."The scientifically reputable SETI (Searching for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) League similarly released a statement thatdid not lend support to the claims of "radio emissions emanating from an Earth-sized artificial satellite allegedly

(Alan Hale, March 28, 1997)

The caption to this imageon the Heaven's Gatesite reads: "

." Cult members believedthat theywere exchanging their earthly bodiesfor extraterrestrial life-forms, thereby achievingimmortality in a physical "Evolutionary Level

Above Human."

Howa Member of the Kingdom ofHeaven might appear

coming apocalypse. But howeversound like a variation of Cartesiathought that they were literally, nor beings higher on the evolutionfrom "Heaven's Gate 'Away Tea

The Kingdom of God, the Lev bodies are merely containers,that"vehicle." The body is me

).Release

Perhaps needless to say, their belChristian thought, whether or notto mind routine science fiction buthe West construes as decadent a

indeed, deeply dissociated from -

The Heaven's Gate group was Ot problems with homosexuality in t

]. There has been muc become an evangelist of the anti-misfortunes it brought him, Applorigin of Applewhite's calling, sur purifying the body to prepare it fof Applewhite's followers made tStatement: Why We Must Leavetwist:

14, 1997)

These "lower forces" have sutoothpaste to clothing elevateEvenif we go on an outing asinnuendoes, even when the grsexuality. Procedures such asacceptable, but ask a physicialikely be referred to a psycholmost humansthat you could

From the unsympathetic point ofadvocate for scientific reason an beauty . . . [Hale-Bopp] is a dirtyThe scientifically reputable SETIdid not lend support to the claims of "radio emissions emanating from




9/29

shadowing Comet Hale-Bopp. . . . We in SETI would like nothing more than for these claims to be true, and verifiable.But faith alone is not proof" [ ].(Shuch, 1997)

It's important to acknowledge, however, that there is absolutely nothing wrongheaded or out of the norm with thecosmic question Heaven's Gate was asking. Who hasn't looked up at the nighttime sky and wondered: "Are we alone?"Author of the 1985 novel , on which last summer's film was based and in which Heaven's Gate can be glimpsed,astronomer and former member of the SETI advisory board [ ] wrote in : "In thedeepest sense the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is a search for ourselves." Despite their escapism, or perhaps because of it, the Heaven's Gate cult members were particularly in touch with the childlike wonder that most of us neverquite lose. As a UFO cult, they were attuned to the heavens and, in fact, Nettles had been an astrologer [

]. While the Heaven's Gate cult members undoubtedly were further out on the continuum, many peoplehave a limited belief in the ability of the stars to portend the future or otherwise attach significance to celestial cycles andevents.[ ] While this is exactly the kind of superstition that Hale didn't want to taint his comet, it's hard to ignore thisdeep current within human nature, no matter how much science provides rational explanations and despite no solidevidence from outer space of any other life-forms or earthly visitations. Nor are such feelings entirely irrational: Hale-Bopp like other comets was said to contain the building blocks of life [ ]. Everything onBuckminster Fuller's (1964) "spaceship earth" is, of course, part of the heavens. We are the stuff of stars. In searchingfor meaning in the universe, we are also trying to make sense of who we are, where we came from, and where we'regoing.

Contact (Carl Sagan, 1979) Cosmic Search

(Chua-Eoan,April 7, 1997)

15

(DiChristina, Aug. 1997)

If these New Age concerns don't sound so new, there is good reason. These we-are-stardust-we-are-golden ideas areonce again making the rounds as we approach the next millennium and can be found in abundance on the Internet.Mostly in their 40s, the Heaven's Gate cult members were of the baby-boomer generation responsible for the PCrevolution of the 1980s and that gravitated to the Net in the early 1990s. Their writings speak of God and the heavenly

garden, which we have to nostalgically return to, in terms that don't significantly differ from how Joni Mitchell capturedthe Woodstock moment of 1969. The Heaven's Gate Website links to a few New Age organizations, such as, information and links on angels, channeling, healing light, reincarnation, yoga, and UFOs; , Christian

resources and spiritual guidance in cyberspace; , a global interfaith networked community; and the, "the premiere online news service for the End Times."

SpiritWeb Christ Net

Origin Millennial Prophecy Report

Yet these warm and fuzzy vibes could lead the susceptible astray, much as was feared might be the influence of the"flower children" of the 1960s. One of the Heaven's Gate cult members who committed suicide on March 26 was, infact, recruited through the Net.[ ] Yvonne McCurdy-Hill, 39 years-old, a postal worker and a mother of five includingweek-old twins, became attracted to the cult after reading Applewhite's teachings on the Web, exchanging email with thegroup, and experiencing a sense of belonging with the cult that she apparently didn't find elsewhere. With a look of beatific certainty on her face, McCurdy-Hill says on the exit tapes that "there is nothing for me here" (

). Six months after joining Heaven's Gate, shewas dead.

16

Students of Heaven's Gate Expressing Their Thoughts before Exit, March 21, 1997

But in terms of the Heaven's Gate belief system, suicide was more of a means to an end than The End since their intentwas to reunite with the cosmos, not unlike Timothy Leary and creator Gene Roddenberry. On April 21, afew weeks after the events at Rancho Santa Fe, a sprinkling of ashes belonging to Leary and Roddenberry and a fewothers who could afford the interplanetary boost were launched into space on the maiden voyage of a mortuary servicecalled Celestis, Inc. [ ]. Rkkody, formerly Charles Humphrey (a.k.a. Rick Edwards), whocurrently maintains the Website as well as the restored Heaven's Gate site, is among the former cultmembers who believe that Applewhite and his fellow "crew members" succeeded in their mission. On the Web page"What If They're Right?" (with perhaps an inadvertent allusion to [ ]'s article about MarshallMcLuhan, "What If He Is Right?"), Rkkody keeps the faith:

Star Trek

( , April 22, 1997)USA TodayRight to Know

(Tom Wolfe, 1966)

What if Do IS from the Kingdom of God? What if He IS the same mind, the samesoul, who was here 2000 years ago inthe body of the one called Jesus? What if they aretelling the TRUTH about how we can enter the Kingdom of Heaven? .. . [No] one seemsto be asking if maybe these individuals went exactly where they said they were going, tothe NextLevel ( ).What If They're Right?

If Applewhite was right, then the 38 crew members have joined Do and Ti within Heaven's Gate. They're flying highthrough the universe, New Age angels with new genderless cyborg-vehicles that don't feel pleasure or pain, who have aneternity in which to follow their bliss, to watch sci fi reruns and to surf the Net without commercial interruption (in thisheavenly vision, bandwidth isn't a problem). Moreover, if he was right, then how long will it be until we start hearingreports of Applewhite sightings?

Is Cyberculture to Blame?

On Easter Sunday, "Paradise Lost," an editorial by San Francisco-based journalist




10/29

Richard Rodriguez, appeared in the : Los Angeles Times

In the end, the religion propounded by Heaven's Gate owes more to theAge of Bill Gates and Microsoft than to the Age of SaintTeresa and the illuminatedmanuscript. Today, North County, San Diego, where the sect settled, is home to a globalvillage ofhigh-tech, bio-tech, info-tech. . . . A brave new line stretched along thePacific coast . . . through the famous Silicon Valley, allthe way north to Redmond,Washington. Is it a coincidence of demographics or economics that so much technologicaldiscovery is happening along this Pacific coast? Or is it again the coastline isencouraging many of us to seek a new world

because the ocean reminds us of land's end? Wemay be living through a period of intellectual discovery and innovation . . . asgreat asany in history. Clearly, however, there is a lurking temptation -- the temptation familiarto earlier California religious sects-- to fear the coastline and fear time, to abandonthe dry, scrub foothills of Rancho Santa Fe and enter the cool of cyberspace,floatingfree in the night. . . .

Click onto the Web. Enter the realm called cyberspace where all information is availableto you. Locate Heaven's Gate. There! Inseveral colors, blinking, with its list of options. . . you are now, safely, forever, in cyberspace. The dead yet speak to us on our computer. One of them said, in an interview before her suicide . . . "There isnothing for us here." She meant that there was no wayfor her to go on living in SanDiego, in California, in the sun light. This is not religion. It is the expression ofdespair in ourtechnological age[ ].(Rodriguez, March 30, 1977)

Rodriguez is one of the better informed commentators and his thoughts merit some scrutiny. He locates Heaven's Gate'ssuicidal renunciation more in what technology is attracting to the West Coast than to the influence of the Internet on its pilgrims. He associates the cult's religious beliefs with an unnatural fixation on computer technology and perhaps withtechnology in general. Rather than staying in their place as simple labor-saving devices, the mechanisms are runningamuck and ruining human lives. Instead of enhancing our lives, mechanization is impoverishing them. This is a familiarLuddite or neo-Luddite claim, "It is the expression of despair in our technological age," and one that isn't possible toeither wholly agree or disagree with, since it is founded in point of view [(e.g. ; ;

; ; ; ; ].Mumford, 1934 Ellul,1954 Postman,

1985 Brook & Boal, 1995 Stoll, 1995 Dery, 1996 Noble, 1997)

But Rodriguez goes a bit further with his description of cyberspace: "floating free in the night. . . . all information isavailable to you . . . . safely, forever." Is this heaven or hell? It certainly is imaginative, since most of us probably don'texperience cyberspace quite this poetically. We sit in front of our cathode-ray tubes and keyboards to do our business,which often means no more than routine correspondence, and we log off. We don't have time to linger and get entranced

by the "colors." This is cyberspace as drug, as hallucinogen, as Internet addiction. A dangerous place. A place wheredeluded souls like the Heaven's Gate cult members may take hold and lead others astray. Rodriguez cites the sole cultmember who had been recruited online, McCurdy-Hill, who felt there was nothing more for her on this planet. Butcyberspace resists simple explanations. Rodriguez uses a restricted palette in this portrait of cyberspace, which containsmany colors and means different things to different people [ ; ]. As Jeff Zaleski says in

, "[trying] to define cyberspace is like trying to tie a bow on a jellyfish" [ ].(Jones, 1995 1997) The Soul of

Cyberspace (Zaleski, 1997, 30)

Despite the evidence that the cult was more about UFOs and marginalized or pop-culture religion than the Net and the Net was simply one of the means by which they conveyed information, the persistence of the public's fears as filteredthrough the mass media suggests that these claims deserve to be aired and taken seriously and addressed at least in part.Arguments about Heaven's Gate as a Net accident-waiting-to-happen are similar to what was said about the CDA -- inthat many felt that it was, and continue to feel that it is, necessary to block harmful information from minds that don'thave the critical ability to filter through spurious from true and arrive at a sensible conclusion. Given the potentiallywidespread acceptance of the Internet and its ease of use, ideas, or in the case of the CDA, pornography, can spreadmore easily online than through print and broadcast, which have a limited audience or require more specialized skills andequipment in order to publish or transmit information.

Another line of thought that doesn't get much play in the media, but is a pressing concern of the government and military,is information warfare, a form of terrorism.[ ] It's easy to view the Heaven's Gate group as more pitiful than threatening-- and as Ted Turner bluntly pointed out, practically speaking, they hurt no one but themselves -- but nevertheless thereare those charged with the protection of the citizenry who feel that such ideas must be carefully controlled lest they getout of hand and encourage mass hysteria, incendiary behavior, and worse. [ ], whofound the suicides "sickening . . . shocking," said, "I think it's important that we . . . try to determine what, in fact,motivated those people, and what all of us can do to make sure that there aren't other people thinking that way out therein our country, that aren't so isolated that they can create a world for themselves that may justify that kind of thing. It'svery troubling to me." Attorney General Janet Reno said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was "monitoring" thecase and standing by "ready to assist," although there was "no indication of any federal crime" [

17

(President Clinton, March 27, 1997)

(Orange County

Marshall Herff Applewhite's book,, sets

forth the cult's philosophy. areused tosubstantiate their position.

How andWhen "Heaven's Gate"May Be Entered

Biblical citations

In the end, the religion propouTeresa and the illuminatedmanhigh-tech, bio-tech, info-tech. .the way north to Redmond,Wadiscovery is happening along t

because the ocean reminds usgreat asany in history. Clearly,-- to fear the coastline and fearfloatingfree in the night. . . .

Click onto the Web. Enter the reaseveral colors, blinking, with itscomputer. One of them said, in afor her to go on living in SanDietechnological age[(Rodriguez,

Rodriguez is one of the better infosuicidal renunciation more in what pilgrims. He associates the cult's retechnology in general. Rather thanamuck and ruining human lives. InLuddite or neo-Luddite claim, "It ieither wholly agree or disagree wit

; ;1985 Brook & Boal, 1995 Stoll,

But Rodriguez goes a bit further wavailable to you . . . . safely, forevexperience cyberspace quite this pwhich often means no more than r

by the "colors." This is cyberspacedeluded souls like the Heaven's Gmember who had been recruited ocyberspace resists simple explanatmany colors and means different t

, "[trying] to define cyCyberspace

Despite the evidence that the cult Net was simply one of the meansthrough the mass media suggests tArguments about Heaven's Gate athat many felt that it was, and contihave the critical ability to filter throwidespread acceptance of the Intemore easily online than through priequipment in order to publish or tr

Another line of thought that doesn'is information warfare, a form of t-- and as Ted Turner bluntly pointare those charged with the protectiout of hand and encourage mass hfound the suicides "sickening . . . smotivated those people, and whatin our country, that aren't so isolatvery troubling to me." Attorney Gcase and standing by "ready to assist," although




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]. The men in black were prepared to take the appropriate measures, should alien-abductionfrenzy have suddenly seized the nation.

, March 28, 1997) Register

In a surprising editorial in , Geoffrey Cowley cited Aaron Lynch who drew on [ ]: Newsweek (Richard Dawkins, 1989)

[As] the Heaven's Gate tragedy reminds us, hosts who swallow both theheaven-is-ours and the end-is-near memes mayconclude the end is theirs to hasten -- andhasten it. But a virus that kills its host doesn't always kill itself. . . . "Let'ssay100 million people were exposed to the Heaven's Gate meme [on television] as a resultof the 39 suicides," Lynchspeculated. "If one in a million of those peoplecontracted the meme, the suicides would have yielded 100 newinfections" [ ].(Cowley, April 14, 1997, 14)

Heaven's Gate could be considered dangerous just because of the existence of their ideas, which could spread throughmedia and take on an untoward life of their own like a mutant virus or cancer. Digital code is alive and seeks to remainalive, obeying nothing like Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics."[ ] In

, editor Kevin Kelly says that: "The meanings of 'mechanical' and 'life'are both stretching until all complicated things can be perceived as machines, and all self-sustaining machines can be perceived as alive. . . . The apparent veil between the organic and the manufactured has crumpled to reveal that the tworeally are, and have always been, of one being" [ ]. Kelly terms this merging "neo-biology."

18 Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines,Social Systems, and the Economic World Wired

(Kelly, 1994, 13)

Perhaps if the Net can be thought of as a neo-biological organism, then it can heal itself, protecting itself from ideas thatcould possibly spread out of control. The ethos of the Net that applies to censorship may act as censorship if, asElectronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) co-founder John Gilmore anthropomorphically asserted in

, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it" [ ]. Maybethe Net also has the volition to route around evil memes and its own bad neighborhoods. Even if Charles Manson,considered to be a far more dangerous false prophet than Marshall Applewhite, is successful in uploading a home page,it's unlikely that he would be heard above the cacophony of other voices, which surely includes voices that would arise in protest against him.[ ] And hopefully most of us online who are thinking adults are unlikely to jump off a cliff, lemming-like, because a charismatic West Coast father-figure commands us, be it Applewhite, Manson, or the Reverend Schuler.

The Virtual Community (as cited in Rheingold, 1993, 7)

19

Nevertheless one death is still one too many. Rodriguez reminds us that McCurdy-Hill abandoned her five children andworldly possessions to join Heaven's Gate after being attracted to Applewhite's teachings on the Web. Zaleski says:

Those most vulnerable to a cult's message -- the lonely, the shy, misfits,outcasts -- are often attracted to the Net,relishing its power to allow communicationwith others while maintaining anonymity. While the Net offers anunprecedented menu ofchoice, it also allows budding fanatics to focus on just one choice -- to tune into thesame Website, the same newsgroup, again and again, for hours on end, shut off from allother stimuli -- and to isolate themselvesfrom conflicting beliefs. Above all, theheadiness of cyberspace, its divorce from the body and the body's incarnatewisdom, giveseasy rise to fantasy, paranoia, delusions of grandeur. It wasn't a great surprise to learnthat the members ofHeaven's Gate were described . . . as being "unnaturallypale," or that they emphasized nonsexuality even to the extent ofcastration andhoped to "shed" their bodily "containers" in order to pass on to the"Level Above Human" [

].

(Zaleski,

1997, 249)

Zaleski gets at the heart of why the Net may have contributed to the events that led to Rancho Santa Fe. Freedom fromthe physical body and the free reign given to the imagination in cyberspace, the very elements of psychic freedomcelebrated by the Net's most prominent spokespeople, have contributed to the cult members' decision to go thenext, if illogical, step. Generational and pop-culture commonality are among the reasons why the beliefs that Applewhite preached happen to fit with some of the most influential ideas circulating within cyberculture. It's within the realm of possibility that Applewhite's ministry plus cyberculture was a toxic mix.

could

Therefore, rather than dismissing the Heaven's Gate group as extremists -- even though the evidence strongly supportssuch a view -- let's instead naïvely consider them to be representative of garden-variety cyberculture, which is what themass media did in its initial coverage of the Heaven's Gate deaths. Let's examine some of the aspects of digital culturethat are most commonly considered to be potentially dangerous and explore them despite the fact that due to his agedifference and background in UFOlogy, Applewhite was coming from a different place and probably wasn't muchinfluenced by cyberculture. His New Age followers who worked online and used that medium to communicate probablyread , surfed the Web, and participated in Usenet. For the sake of argument, let's assume that this is so and followthrough on three sets of ideas central to cyberculture that seem relevant to Heaven's Gate: cyborgs, physicaltranscendence, and polymorphous online identity.

Wired

Cyborg: Meat Machine

In the sense in which [ ; ] and [ ] use the term, the Heaven's Gate cultmembers can be thought of as cyborgs. Heaven's Gate's neutering, their fascination with fringe faith and science, theiridentification with technologically mediated gods and goddesses (whether personified as the Messiah, the Two, or adeity drawn from popular culture) not only evinces the dualism of the technorganic merging of human with machine but perhaps points up what can go wrong when the celebration of the deeply unnatural moves beyond theory and into therealm of experience. To paraphrase Stone, the members of Heaven's Gate "fell in love with their prosthesis."

(Donna Haraway, 1991 1997) (Sandy Stone, 1995)




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In "Thoughts on the Status of the Cyborg: On Technological Socialization and Its Link to the Religious Function ofPopular Culture," Brenda Brasher follows John Fiske, as well as Haraway and Stone, to offer a religio-cyborg theory inwhich subcultures may find their own meanings simultaneous with or oppositional to their producers' intentions:

Maneuvering among the contradictory images, ethics, and narratives oftechnologically- mediated popular culture . . .meaning-seeking cyborgs reconfigure thebits and bites of mass-produced culture into popular culture faiths. Evidenceattesting tothe religious function of popular culture abounds. It has . . . . given birth to a zealot:the Unabomber, a

bizarre, antisocial cyborg trying to usher in a technological apocalypseon his own. Today's borged humans may or maynot attend an overt religious group; but theyprobably do view . . . "Star Trek: The Next Generation" . . ."religiously" anddiscuss them with others, treating their fictional orquasi-fictional scenarios as a base for determining behavioral norms

and creating newvisions of community. . . . As Thomas Jefferson once treated the Bible, cyborgs sortthrough thetechnologically-mediated offerings of popular culture to select what they findreligiously useful. Developing their socialethics in television talk shows, theirtheology in science fiction . . . cyborg religionists refashion the pleasure offerings of modernity into an anchor composed of the world to ground themselves within it [ ].(Brasher, 1996, 821-22)

Brasher's thoughts were written before the Heaven's Gate tragedy, but they are very much on target. The Heaven'sGate's cult members can be thought of as cyborgs "who sort through the technologically-mediated offerings of popularculture to select what they find religiously useful." As users, they identified with their computer systems to the extent thatthe interface became part of themselves, like an organic or bodily system. This could work in reverse as well, as when prosthetics means a reduction in body parts such as is required to "neuter [a] vehicle." It's not altogether clear, however,that "the pleasure offerings of modernity" provided much of a grounding for the cult members. It may be that "realityhacking," as Stone puts it, opened up boundaries into popular culture and cyberspace that the Heaven's Gate cultmembers were unable to explore without peril.

In "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," Haraway

outlines her vision of woman as Other, cyborg as Other, and cyborg as transgressor of the boundaries between human,nonhuman, and inhuman, and by extension other naturally assumed patriarchal and national ideologies: "Cyborg imagerycan suggest a way out of the maze of dualisms in which we have explained our bodies and our tools to ourselves. Itmeans both building and destroying machines, identities, categories, relationships, space stories. Though both are boundin the spiral dance, I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess" [ ]. Haraway prefers

to mythological deity as a way of resolving the binaries and atomization intrinsic to digitization and othermanmade categories. Empowered as a cyborg, Haraway's transgendered, multicultural goddess is conceived as a kind of postmodern gladiator -- not unlike some of Gibson's fictional heroines.

(Haraway, 1985, 181) deus exmachina

Rodriguez's conception of cyberspace is largely drawn from [ ], as is much of what we think of ascyberculture. Author of the cyberpunk science fiction classic , Gibson coined the term "cyberspace" fromcybernetics. Although dismissed by Marvin Minksy [ ] as being all "atmosphere," style withno cybersubstance, Gibson's cyborgs have been enormously influential in the Net community, where its users oftenoverlook Gibson's dark undertones and embrace the fictional world and genre he created. Fitted with artificial body parts imbued with intelligence, the characters in the Sprawl trilogy seek more and greater simulated sensory immersion.

The neural Net is alive and pulsating, inhabiting a space where mind and digital code merge and secede from the physical body or "meat."

(WilliamGibson, 1984) Neuromancer

(as cited in Stork, 1997, 30)

In terms of Heaven's Gate, however, what authors such as Gibson, Haraway, and Stone actually say may be lessimportant than how their ideas are received and reshaped by cyberculture, especially since any linkage of their ideas withthe cult is conjecture. What matters is that they have a pervasive influence. In , the unofficial voice of the Net, thecyborg is glamorized and romanticized and generally sold to its readers. Haraway's desire to become empowered as acyborg goddess and Gibson's bleak, mechanized vision informs countless technophilic articles and advertisements, suchas the regular "Fetish: Technolust" column. Arthur Kroker notes in "Virtual Capitalism" that what's being sold is: "[not] awired culture, but a virtual culture that is wired shut: compulsively fixated on digital technology as a source of salvationfrom everyday life, and determined to exclude from public debate any perspective that is not a cheerleader for thecoming-to-be of the fully realized technological society" [ ]. We'reincessantly reminded thatcyborgs are cool, technology is sacred, and "wetware," or brain plus mind, is the only bodily organ worth recycling [ ].

Wired

(Kroker, 1996, 168)

(Rucker, 1997)

It's not difficult to put zero and one together to see how this techophilic mindset might have influenced Heaven's Gate.Already halfway there because of their avid interest in science fiction and UFOs, through familiarity with the Net and itsculture the younger Heaven's Gate cult members who contributed to Usenet and the Web very well might haveencountered a lifestyle that underscored the devaluing of the human and the reification of the mechanical that alreadyattracted them in the teachings of Marshall Applewhite. Thus the alienation they already felt was given the luster of someadded "cultural capital" [ ]. But as they seem to have experienced in their other social encounters, onlinetoo the Heaven's Gate cult members were outsiders with their noses pressed to the virtual glass. As cyborgs theyencountered one more reason to leave their meat behind.

(Bourdieu, 1984)

Transcending the Body

Frank Biocca writes on "The Cyborg's Dilemma":




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The more natural the interface the more "human" it is, the more itadapts to the human body and mind. The more theinterface adapts to the human body andmind, the more the body and mind adapts to the non-human interface. Therefore,the morenatural the interface, the more we become "unnatural," the more we becomecyborgs [ ] .(Biocca, 1997)

Is the technorganic process so insidious and naturalized, as Biocca suggests, that we accept its reality and semblancethereof without critical distance? Biocca's reading of the cyborg draws on McLuhan's (1965) formulation of media,which extends human consciousness, enabling the audience, or user, to have more open channels and greater immersion,to become completely surrounded or enveloped by media, as is the experience of virtual reality or VR. The moresuccessful the interface, the more we are unaware of its effect, as with magic or cinematic tricks in which we don't seethe apparatus at work but accept its fiction as reality [(e.g., ; ; ]. In addition toa willing suspension of disbelief, what we are aware of is an enlargement of our consciousness and capacity to receiveinformation. We are there, without matter, telepresent [ ].

Baudry, 1975 Comolli, 1980 Metz, 1981)

(Lombard & Ditton, 1997)

The Heaven's Gate cult members were attracted to the idea of leaving the body for a technologically- or computer-mediated consciousness. We know that they identified with science fiction and fantasized about being "beamed up."Indeed they thought that they were casting aside their human shells for alien embodiment. Perhaps ideas about VR asopposed to RL, or real life, filtered down to the cult members because of their familiarity with the Net and throughworking in the field on the West Coast. The dilemma for them, therefore, would've been that they lacked the commonsense and perspective necessary to separate fact from fiction, RL from hallucinogenic VR (used here to mean both VR inthe technical sense as well as what's popularly conceived of as VR, which is a combination of communication incyberspace and highly immersive experiences, such as Rodriguez describes).

From this assumption, we might infer that for Heaven's Gate the idea of alien abduction was analogous to a VR "trip"; inother words, that they didn't realize that there was no return ticket. Leaving aside for the moment the thorny question of

whose reality is the "real" reality, we would have to assume that somewhere in the back of their minds the Heaven's Gatecult members didn't wholly believe that they were leaving this world for the next, just as the real-life consequences ofcastration weren't wholly apparent to them. For this interpreter, that's a difficult conclusion to arrive at. On a sliding scaleof reality perception, sex and death seem vividly real. Moreover a willingness to commit suicide as an act of faith is justabout as strong an avowal as can be made. Suicide and semblance would seem to be mutually exclusive; hence, sincesuicide cannot be feigned, it must be real. Suicide is a dilemma unavailable to cyborgs -- although where do cyborgs goafter they die is an interesting spin on the question posed by [ ] ("Mommy, Where Do CyborgsCome From Anyway?"). Nevertheless, however deluded someone considering suicide may be, it seems that a momentof self-preserving clarity would be likely to arise while arriving at the decision to permanently relinquish life in favor ofsomething else, even if immortality is thought to be one of the options available after voluntary death.

(Adele Clarke, 1995)

But perhaps these reflections themselves are the product of popular culture, the life-flashing-before-one's-eyes of athousand television commercials and countless second-rate Hamlets staring into the abyss. Therefore, let's dismiss theseriousness with which Heaven's Gate acted and let's assume that they didn't make the conscious decision to end theirlives. Instead, let's assume that they were somehow more influenced by the Net than by Marshall Applewhite, however

unlikely that may have been. Let's go even further and assume that the Heaven's Gate cult members wholly subscribed tothe ethos of the Net arguably best represented by its ambassador at large, John Perry Barlow. Longtime WELLmember, EFF co-founder, and lyricist for the Grateful Dead, Barlow espoused the online union of minds in "ACyberspace Independence Declaration," written on the occasion of the passage of the Telecommunications Act with itsCDA provision:

Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thoughtitself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of ourcommunications. Ours is a worldthat is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live. . . . We arecreatinga world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter howsingular, without fear of being coercedinto silence or conformity. Your legal concepts ofproperty, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply tous. They are basedon matter. There is no matter here. Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, wecannot obtainorder by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightenedself-interest, and the commonweal, our governancewill emerge. Our identities may bedistributed across many of your jurisdictions [ ].(Barlow, Feb. 8, 1996)

Barlow describes a cyberspace that is intangible and incorporeal, yet it lives and breathes and defies the material world's

preconceptions and containers. It is a world of unparalleled freedom, of freedoms only promised in the FirstAmendment: freedom of speech, of religion, from law, and from the body. The Internet stretches across national andstate boundaries, respecting none. But rather than falling apart into chaos and anarchy, the online world will be governed by "ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal." Interestingly, Barlow says that his manifesto "passed throughme, and as soon as it got out there [on the Net] it took on a life of its own. Literally. And continues to cruise aroundcyberspace without my doing anything whatsoever" [ ]. Barlow's ideas circulated throughthe circuitry of the Net far beyond the intentions of their producer, taking on their own neo-biological life.

(as cited in Zaleski, 1997, 37)

A latter day Thomas Paine, Barlow's ideas are intended to provoke and stimulate discussion. But even taken at facevalue, could the members of Heaven's Gate have confused Barlow's rhetorical flourishes with the bluster of their spiritualleader? To accept this idea, you would have to infer that talk of civil disobedience, by its mere existence, is dangerous,an idea that is absurd in light of the First Amendment (although ideological censorship is obviously one of the uses that




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might've been made of the CDA). Furthermore, there is nothing in Barlow's commonly known writings that is anything but life-affirming. Indeed, he's talked movingly about the death of his former partner and of "soul data," or lifeexperiences shared across wires that carry the essence of their senders' humanity [ ].Without the human element, zeros and ones are nothing more than information, data without knowledge or wisdom [ ], lacking what Walter Benjamin called "aura" (1936). Barlow envisions a cyberspace peopled withminds who freely exchange ideas without the fear of reprisal that comes with the physical world with its materialist legalstructure and bodily punishment [ ]. But he is never nihilistic. Rather Barlow could be and often iscensured for his tendency to see only the positive aspects of the virtual community, although for Barlow this doesn'tcome at the expense of experiential life, which for him means living on a ranch in Wyoming.

(Barlow, et al. 1995, 38-39)

(Zaleski, 1997)

(Foucault, 1975)

If not Barlow, then maybe former Harvard psychology professor Timothy Leary more properly represents dangerousideas in cyberspace. A threat to reality lovers everywhere, Leary was generally considered to be the world's foremostauthority on mind-expanding experiences from hallucinogens to VR. In , Leary expounds on,among other things, the ecstatic joy found in communal sharing in virtual environments, the organic merging with thedigital in a realm free of physical constraints that is paradoxically more human than manmade, more spiritual thanmaterial: "The closest you are probably ever going to get to navigating your soul is when you are piloting your mindthrough your brain or its external stimulation on cybernetic screens" [ ].

Chaos and Cyberculture

(Leary, 1994, 5)

Or if not Leary, than maybe we should point the accusatory finger at VR pioneer and musician Jaron Lanier, whosimilarly unsettles because he doesn't accept empiricist definitions of reality and consciousness. Contra Barlow andLeary, Lanier argues that VR doesn't exist bodies and that, unlike virtual amusement-park rides, the medium isinteractive to such an extent that "if you don't do anything, you won't perceive anything -- the only thing that makesvirtual reality seem real is your activity" [ ]. For Lanier, virtual consciousness is inseparablefrom bodily consciousness.

without

(as cited in Parker, 1997)

These "digerati" [ ] hold different views on bodily liberation through virtuality. But what partially setsBarlow, Leary, and Lanier apart from the Heaven's Gate cult members is an insistence on cyber . Practicing akind of cyber-ecology, they've put back into the virtual community whatever they've taken from it, which is quitedifferent from Heaven's Gate, which never seemed to consider the Net to be anything more than a cheap medium for broadcasting messages. These men are or were not ostracized from society and they don't preach estrangement anddespair. Barlow, Leary, and Lanier are among digital culture's heroes a