Heaven's Gate
Page 5
All of this represented a radical departure from astrology, theosophical teachings, and New Age spiritual seeking. An obvious question is why. While both Nettles and Applewhite had been raised Christians, Nettles admitted to its lack of influence in her adult life. She always believed more strongly in the Eastern religions, as she had explained previously.44 Meanwhile the Presbyterianism of Applewhite’s youth and college years generally eschews apocalypticism, with the leaders of Applewhite’s own regional Presbyterian association—of which his father was a member—having declared dispensationalist pre-millennialism a heresy.45 Since it did not emerge from either’s cradle tradition, the Two must have picked up their millennial ideas either from their religious explorations or broader culture. The former is far more likely, given their self-descriptions of religious seeking and reading. Fellow Texan Hal Lindsey had published his best-selling book The Late Great Planet Earth in 1970, and it had quickly swept through Christian circles. In the book Lindsey interprets Revelation and other prophetic texts with reference to contemporary culture, and develops predictions for the end-times that place the apocalyptic scenario in the immediate future. Nettles and Applewhite had an identical project of deciphering the biblical text, though they came to differing conclusions. Lindsey’s book sold more than fifteen million copies during its first twelve years in print, indicating the tremendous cultural sway of millennialism. Nettles and Applewhite responded to such millennialism in creating their own religious identities, and used such interests in their eventual proselytizing.46 They may have even read Lindsey and been directly influenced by his dispensationalist approach, though this is conjecture. Regardless, they came to similar conclusions that the end-time was near, and adopted a similar view of the dispensations and the coming rapture.
Yet the Two had not abandoned their New Age perspectives, but rather merely combined them with Christian millennialism. The New Age movement itself assumes a millennial perspective, albeit one less destructive in outlook, and looks to the dawning of the eponymous new age when human potential shall finally be achieved. This form of millennialism—“progressive millennialism,” as historian Catherine Wessinger has called it—envisions a radical disruption to the world as it currently exists, but without the violence and upheaval popularly associated with apocalyptic scenarios. Apocalypticism as envisioned in the popular consciousness—emphasizing portends of doom, natural disasters, and wars—follows a more common Christian form of eschatology technically called “premillennialism,” or more helpfully “catastrophic millennialism” in Wessinger’s typology.47 Regardless, Nettles and Applewhite seemed to blur the boundaries between them.
Figure 1.1. Marshall Herff Applewhite and Bonnie Lu Nettles in a picture taken October 16, 1975, in Harlingen, Texas. Image © Bettmann/CORBIS.
Nettles and Applewhite declared that, following their predicted martyrdom and resurrection, a UFO would descend in a technological enactment of the rapture wherein it would hover midair to pick up the Two and anyone else who believed them and accepted their message. The UFO would then return to outer space, delivering its passengers to a heavenly utopia. The bodies of the Two and their followers would transform through biological and chemical processes into perfected extraterrestrial beings, and they would live indefinitely in the “Next Level” or “Evolutionary Level Above Human,” as the Two later called it, in a state of near-perfection. While similar to the Christian idea of Heaven, the Two’s ufological vision also bears similarity to theosophy’s visions of the higher planes, especially as the I AM variant of theosophy proclaimed. Its emphasis on bodily self-transformation and perfection similarly echoes New Age themes, and of course the presence of beliefs in extraterrestrials and UFOs marks their beliefs as part of a specific segment of the ufological-oriented New Age movement.
In May 1974, the Two decided to return to Houston to proclaim their new gospel, and they first approached a former client named Sharon, whom they knew from their days of running the Christian Arts Center and Know Place. Like Nettles’s and Applewhite’s experiences before meeting, this former student was in the midst of a bad relationship and was seeking a higher truth to buttress and reaffirm her identity. Sharon decided after six days of meeting with the Two to accept their religious message, and like them she chose to abandon her family and become a religious wanderer. Leaving her wedding ring and notes for her family, Sharon began traveling and preaching the gospel of the Two. Like a latter-day John the Baptist, she hurried ahead of the Two, advertised their impending arrival, and sought to arrange for audiences to hear them.48
The Two and Sharon canvassed the country, seeking to spread the word of the Two’s religious discoveries. These attempts failed. In one notable exchange in June 1974, Nettles and Applewhite evangelized to a Boise State University anthropology professor, and later to a Boise-area professional psychic. The professor, Max Pavesic, recounted that the Two “walked into my office and asked me to drop everything and leave with them. They were very sincere and intense but they had weird eyes.” The Two indicated that they would be “publically crucified” as a “demonstration” to the world of their truth, and that only a small subset of people who had agreed to walk away from their lives would be able to join them on the UFOs and journey on to the higher realms of outer space, a highest level of evolution . . . a metaphysical state where the mind is evolved out of the body into infinity.”49 Both Pavesic and the psychic—who reported a nearly identical offer—declined, and the Two departed. Throughout their time with Sharon the same pattern repeated. The three of them failed to make a single convert during their stop in Boise or anywhere else they went.
Like most of the Two’s converts, Sharon eventually left the fold. Though ambivalent about whether she still accepted their religious message, her guilt over abandoning her family—including a two-year-old daughter—eventually led her to return home. Four months after joining the Two, her husband and daughters confronted her, and Sharon opted to return to a more conventional life. Like many former members of new religious movements, Sharon was ambivalent about her departure. She worried that “she had disappointed God and forfeited her place” onboard the UFO, she later told a reporter.50 Yet many other converts would eventually take her place.
Trial, Prison, and Growth
Sharon’s departure had an immediate impact on the Two, and not just in terms of their self-confidence. Sharon’s husband had charged Nettles and Applewhite with credit card fraud for their use of Sharon’s credit card during her time as their follower. While Sharon later admitted to permitting them to use the card, the accusation resulted in the Two’s arrests. Police declined to charge Applewhite and Nettles with the credit card fraud, but their arrests led to the discovery of another warrant against Applewhite for theft of a rental car.51 Applewhite was arraigned and transferred to Missouri, where he was imprisoned for six months awaiting trial. Nettles returned to working as a nurse during this time.
The theft of the rental car hints at an important element in the Two’s developing theology, what scholars call antinomianism. From the Greek word “opposed to the law,” antinomianism in Christian theology means that moral or religious laws no longer hold for those who have been saved. Martin Luther (1483–1546) coined the term during a dispute with fellow reformer Johannes Agricola (1494–1566), who championed a view that the laws of Moses (such as Sabbath observance) no longer held for Christians. For Agricola, God’s grace overrode the laws of the Old Testament. In all cases, individuals and groups possessing an antinomian outlook believe that their religious convictions permit them to violate laws that other people or groups follow. In the case of Heaven’s Gate, Applewhite and Nettles believed that their status as the two witnesses and the importance of their spiritual mission permitted them to violate human laws. The police and courts begged to differ.
Applewhite’s trial was brief, and he was sentenced to time served. He was released in March 1975, and Nettles rejoined him immediately thereafter. Yet his imprisonment offered somewhat of a silver l
ining for Applewhite. The “isolation,” as he later called it, led to “significant growth,” during which he came to realize that he and Nettles were in fact not human at all, but extraterrestrials merely inhabiting human bodies.52 He gave two different explanations for this over the following years—either that they had incarnated into these bodies during their lifetimes or during their natal development, or that they had entered into bodies specially prepared for them by the Next Level. This bears some similarity to the concept of “walk-ins,” a New Age concept that became popular several years later which supposes that beneficial spirits—sometimes extraterrestrial ones—can enter into human beings to accomplish certain tasks to assist humanity.
During his imprisonment Applewhite composed a statement of his and Nettles’s beliefs, summarizing their position that they were visitors from an extraterrestrial realm who offered human beings a chance to overcome their limitations and evolve into perfected extraterrestrial creatures. This is the same basic message that Heaven’s Gate continued to offer two decades later, after Nettles had died. Applewhite’s statement also described Jesus as an earlier extraterrestrial visitor, and noted the prophetic role that he and Nettles were to play in the near future. Again, the fundamental positions remained the same even twenty-two years later.53 Applewhite and Nettles edited the statement together and mailed it later that month from a retreat in Ojai, California, a bucolic town near the coast between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. They targeted groups and individuals associated with new and alternative religions and holistic living in their mailing.
The evening of April 9, 1975, marked a turning point for the Two, and the creation of the movement that would eventually be called Heaven’s Gate. Introducing themselves as “Guinea” and “Pig” (though they would soon thereafter adopt the monikers of “Bo” and “Peep”), the Two met with a Los Angeles area metaphysical group led by Clarence Klug and meeting in the house of psychic Joan Culpepper. Details on this meeting vary among the Two’s own recounting, that of attendees, and outside investigators. Yet all agree that it was momentous, and that the Two presented themselves as charismatic leaders bearing an important new spiritual message. Between forty-one and eighty people attended.54 Between twenty-three and twenty-seven individuals decided to join them, depending on which sources one accepts as accurate.55
Klug’s group centered on what he called “Self-Initiation,” an alchemical process whereby his followers could transcend their human limitations and evolve into beings of light. He rooted this process in his interpretations of the Christian book of Revelation, which he read as an allegory for ancient alchemical secrets. Klug’s interpretive approach drew heavily from Hindu mystical traditions, especially the Hindu view of the chakras, centers of energy in the spine. Klug also incorporated Hindu Tantra in his theology. Tantra promises mystical experience and spiritual development through controlled sexual activities, especially control of sexual orgasm. Klug offered such Tantric secret teachings to the inner circle of his followers.56 Klug’s movement seemed as eclectic as the teachings of the Two, and Klug’s followers clearly already demonstrated comfort with religious bricolage and emphasis on seeking transcendence through bodily salvation. Importantly, this predisposed them to at least listen to Nettles and Applewhite’s teachings.
As sociologist Robert Balch indicated in his study of the early history of Heaven’s Gate, Klug’s group was “at the crossroads” when Nettles and Applewhite arrived. A social collapse among his followers had resulted in a precipitous membership decline, and a failed attempt to self-publish his teachings had led to financial ruin for some members of his group. Members reported various social tensions, destructive gossip, and relational ills as well.57 A rampant sense of fear also characterized the group: fear that Klug had been wrong, fear that someone else—Nettles and Applewhite, for example—was right, fear that they might miss their chance for spiritual advancement.58
Though their host Culpepper later became a critic of the Two, apparently her initial reactions were positive. She described Applewhite and Nettles as masters of creating a spiritual connection with their audience. “[T]hey had a charisma and gave off an aura of love and understanding. The man, especially, had hypnotic eyes, although I can’t explain the thing by hypnosis. It went deeper than that. . . . They gave off this love thing, which had to be mentally controlled, as later they came on as two of the most negative people I’d ever met.”59 Culpepper’s later dismissal of their motivations to the contrary, the Two’s ability to attract the attention, respect, and eventually adherence of a significant portion of this audience points to a special interpersonal quality that observers such as Culpepper routinely noted: charisma.
The most influential definition of charisma derives from sociologist of religion Max Weber. As already noted in this book’s introduction, Weber defined charisma as a special superhuman quality that sets a leader apart from others.60 According to this classic approach to defining and delineating charisma, it is a characteristic innate to a person that allows him or her to effectively lead on the basis of what followers believe is the leader’s special abilities, nature, or features. The prophet functions as a classic example in the biblical literature, since he or she (usually he) claims a special ability to speak for God, and those who accept the prophet base their acceptance on that supposed ability. In the Hindu tradition, a guru offers another example. Gurus possess special spiritual gifts developed through yogic practices, inborn characteristics, or gifts of grace from the deities. Those who become their disciples predicate their devotion on the gurus’ gifts, and the gurus base their leadership and teaching authority on those gifts as well. Many of Heaven’s Gate’s members—and some detractors—identified the root of Nettles’s and Applewhite’s leadership abilities in this notion of charisma.
Despite Weber’s assessment of charisma—which has shaped much of subsequent religious studies scholarship—charisma is very much in the eye of the beholder. Recall that until this April 1975 meeting, the Two had failed in every attempt but one to attract converts. Even Sharon, the one adherent that they convinced to join them, eventually left. Many of the people in attendance at the Klug/Culpepper gathering also did not accept the message or become followers of the Two. Charisma is not magic, nor is it particularly effective when judged against the numerous failures of the Two to attract converts. In fact, rather than understand charisma as an inborn state or quality of personality, it is better to look at it as a mutual construction of the leader and followers. As sociologist Roy Wallis argued in his study of the Children of God—a new religion founded in the decade before Heaven’s Gate—“charisma is essentially a relationship born out of interaction between a leader and his followers.”61 A “system of exchanges” marks the creation and negotiation of charisma, Wallis found, and the leader and followers in that new religion continually engage in a process of recreating charisma.62 The leader invests in the self-esteem and religious worth of certain individuals, who then invest in the religious leadership and charisma of the leader. By cultivating these relationships, the leader establishes his or her charisma and authority of leadership.
Based on Wallis’s findings—and those of other sociologists63—rather than envision Nettles and Applewhite as possessing some sort of magical or unusual charismatic ability, it is better to understand them as developing a sense of charisma and leadership authority through skillful relationship-building with their followers. That being said, certainly Applewhite possessed a powerful personality and highly practiced vocal abilities, and both Applewhite and Nettles projected religious authority based on their extensive studies and religious practice. The two used these qualities to build a sense of charisma and leadership. Charisma is therefore more of a rhetorical concept—a useful idea for those who did decide to join the Two, who employed the idea of “charisma” in order to understand their experiences and beliefs that the Two were somehow special. For those who were repulsed by the Two, and especially those who joined and then left, charisma also explaine
d the apparent ability of Nettles and Applewhite to convince evidently sane people to merely walk out of their lives. It helped them process why they had made decisions that in retrospect they regretted. For ex-members like Culpepper who shared a New Age worldview with the Two, the notion of charisma possessed additional features of being rooted in various beliefs about hypnosis, psychic control, and mesmerism.
Approximately two dozen people at the Culpepper/Klug gathering decided to join the Two by walking out on their lives. The Two directed them to meet at a campground in Gold Beach, Oregon on May 5, 1975. Though all but three of the several dozen members who joined the group would eventually leave, this formative gathering in Los Angeles propelled the Two from lone spiritual gurus to founders of a movement.64 Within months, they would also make national headlines and even the national television nightly news. Heaven’s Gate was about to receive its first big publicity.
Waldport and Beyond
On October 7, 1975, the religious group led by Nettles and Applewhite made national news. “20 Missing in Oregon After Talking of Higher Life,” trumpeted a New York Times headline, granted one buried on a back page.65 The article described Nettles’s and Applewhite’s biggest meeting to date, a massive affair at the Waldport Inn in Waldport, Oregon held on September 14, 1975. More than two hundred and fifty people attended according to this article, though other journalists reported a smaller number closer to one hundred.66 Of the attendees, between twenty and thirty-three people decided to accept the teachings of the Two, give up all their possessions, and walk out on their lives.67