Chilluminati Podcast - Episode 294: Heavens Gate Part I - Guinea and Pig

Episode Date: April 13, 2025

Mike, Jesse and Alex finally tackle the UFO cult with a great taste in sneakers, Heavens Gate! MOFFMIN PLUSH MERCH - http://www.theyetee.com/collections/chilluminati Thank you too - All you lovely people at Patreon! HTTP://PATREON.COM/CHILLUMINATIPOD ZocDoc - http://www.zocdoc.com/chill HelloFresh - http://www.hellofresh.com/chill10free Jesse Cox - http://www.youtube.com/jessecox Alex Faciane - http://www.youtube.com/user/superbeardbros Editor - DeanCutty http://www.twitter.com/deancutty Show art by - https://twitter.com/JetpackBraggin http://www.instagram.com/studio_melectro SOURCES Heaven's Gate: America's UFO Religion by Benjamin Zeller

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Chaluminaughty podcast, episode 294. As always, I'm one of your host, Mike Martin, joined today by the Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie and Nettles of L.A., Jesse and Alice. Why do I recognize that? You will, you'll know that. And the whole, don't worry, you'll know why. That sounds like, that sounds like fictional characters to me. You'll, you'll know why. I don't know, I don't recognize those names at all.

You don't, you don't, oh, what the fuck is, is my microphone? Hello? Mattis, where are you, my name? You guys have been, like, falling apart all day and what's going on? I'm doing great. Listen, first of all, I look and feel great. I want to just let... Mathis is literally shrinking, like, like, a little...

Like, he's turning to like a little mouse, where it's just like... I can barely hear it. Who's Marshall Apple and who's Bonnie Nettles as I'm done looking at my microphone settings? I like the name Bonnie Nettles, so I'm just happy to take it. Like, I don't know what it means about me. was the other person. Marshall Applewhite. Marshall Applewhite.

Yes, sir. Definitely sounds like he's a sheriff in a town that don't take no gruff from kids. But like those kids happen to only be one type of kid. You know what I'm saying? Okay. Like something's a little wrong with that sheriff. That sheriff's got like Applewhite. That guy is like a small town.

Yeah. All right. Well, we'll see. I'm wrong with this year. Knowing what I know. Yeah. I'll be curious to your, you'll know in a little bit.

Through the course of this episode, you'll learn exactly who these people are. Great. But before we do that, we only got a few more days or is in a couple more weeks left. It's the end of the month. End of the month. So a couple more,

like two and a half more weeks. I don't, but the thing is, the reason that I don't want to say that you have till the end of the month to do this is because I don't know if we're going to have enough. Yeah, okay, fair, exactly.

Because I would say, I don't know exactly how many we have. I would say that, like, of the amount that there is, we have sold close, to 885% of it. And for the people who do not know what we're talking about. We're talking about Moffman, baby.

Oh, yeah. We're talking about Moffman. He's in demand. Like, not on the same page. Right, right. No, yeah. This little cloned cryptid is flying off the shelves. And he is, uh, there's just not that many left.

So if you're planning on getting one, I'm, this is not like a sales tactic. This is me just telling you, it seems like you have a long time, but there's really not that many left. I didn't expect it to sell this well. If people love it, it's a cute little guy, man. He's a cute little boy. And even the people who have one of the older ones now, they get them a little buddy that can go along with them. So yeah, thank you guys so much for supporting it and like buying those things as crazy as you have been. We are super excited that you've enjoyed it. And we have many ideas as to like what we want to do after. But yeah, get it while you can. Get it while supplies last. It's over at the Yeti.com slash Jolumani.

And yeah, get that stuff. We've got more. Also coming very, very soon over there. Have a gander. What's good for the geese is good for the gander. That's what they always said. Have we considered doing, because I, you know what, I see these days, the kids love the blind boxes. Have we considered doing blind boxes of little figures, but it's cryptids high out of their minds? Listen, all I want to do is just saying. All I want to do Boston Big Bean Boys, little Bean Boys.

And there's all these different versions of Bean Boys. Bean Boy something happening. Don't worry about the Bean Boys. Listen, don't you worry about the Beanboy. I'm just putting out ideas. he's saying why do we not have Boston big bean boy coffee the ideas are already out there in the ether

trust why do we not have uh don't you worry about the bean boy why do we not have bean boy brand canned beans don't don't worry about the bean boy the bean boy will be back you'll feel like yours as the by summer by summer's end

you'll know about the bean boy how about that all right by summer's end we're still in spring we're not even technically spring we're spring it tell that to my, tell that to my pores.

And if you want a little bit of a preview before that drops, people over at Patreon, you get to tend to get a previews and early drops on stuff coming up like merch. I tease stuff on here, but we tease it even more on there. They knew about that moth men. They, yeah, they knew about that moth man way early, just saying. Yeah, they knew it was coming really much before everybody else. And we teased them so hard. Oh my, we were relentless.

Tickle torture over there. But you know who's not into teasing? The subject of today. episode, boys. Oh, thank God. All right. I was wondering where you're going

with that. I thought you're going to say Patreon.com slash Chulminati pop. I thought you're going to say me. Me? No, today we are taking

another large project that I've had on the books for a long time and that combined two of my favorite things in the world. Aliens and true crime mashed together in a rather famous

ones that you will know immediately a topic that we're going to be talking about. I want to qualify this by saying aliens with a heavy heavy quote unquote and then comma actual capital T capital C true crime

yeah yeah it's more true crime subcategory aliens it's like themed it's like how a party is still just a party and you call it a Halloween party because it's themed that's that's what kind of aliens we're talking about you can kind of come you can all not to the point not to the extreme point

that that is but what we're talking about today can be kind of compared to their aliens that Alex covered way way long ago It's like bad ending, Raylians. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because today is part one

of a huge deep dive into none other than the famous 1990s cult Heaven's. Oh, Heaven's Gate. Yes. Make sure you got your...

That's not aliens. That's just crazy people. Make sure you got your shoes and your fucking feet. Put on your white Nike's or Didas or whatever the hell they had, Converse, whatever it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Bring your sheets and get ready to fly. Yeah. This is a big one. This is a big one. This is a big boy. And we're going to be going to be going to be going to be a name that has come up in multiple episodes across all genres that we've done on this show. Because that's just how the universe fucking works. Yeah, you hear, you probably hear Heaven's Gate and immediately think of Rancho Santa Fe, March 1997, 39 people dead laid out with neatly matching Nike's and dark uniforms, purple shrouds, kind of covering the whole bodies.

I don't know if you were, I was a kid. 11 years old at the time. And I remember the news like my mom. I remember. I remember this happening for sure. I remember OJ and I remember this. I don't know if this is a fake memory or not, but I feel like I remember a newscaster like in the building with the dead bodies like standing there and talking like I saw something like that. I feel like I saw something like that. I might be from the X-Files though. Yeah, I feel like that's one of those memories that was like made up. Yeah. Because there's no way they would show just a bunch of dead bodies on TV like that. Well, they're covered. They're covered. Yeah, they're completely covered. All

it was was the feat, you know, they were just Nikes and they had the purple. That's definitely that, that footage does exist, but I don't know if that's news footage. Yeah, it might have been a documentary or something. I don't know. I've definitely seen that footage before, but I don't know that it was like broadcast to people. Yeah, but maybe I'm wrong. I could be. I don't know. It was the 90s, dude. I was just a kid. I don't

really remember. Um, but yeah, this thing did hit the the news like an enormous bomb. A mass suicide, UFO cult, a ton of other bizarre, tragic things that happened that just kind of fell into the list of weird cults America has kind of generated in the past. As an American, I want to say that

nothing about humanity's fucking psychosis and psyche surprises me anymore. No, yeah, not anymore. My soul is destroyed. The light has gone out of my eyes, and I am just along for the ride now, my friends. Yeah. The only time I see the light return to his eyes is the flicker of the flame from whatever he's smoking out of that.

Whenever, whenever somebody subscribes to the Patreon, on my light flickers back on just a little bit. Just a tiny bit. You say, I do. I do. I do believe in dobies. Perfectly dark and empty. Yeah.

Yeah. And honestly, to most of the world, including most people in the U.S., had the same reaction as Jesse did at the very beginning. The shit was just pure insanity. A bizarre, weird thing that they didn't understand how people could believe. But you have to understand this cult is rather unique in many, many ways compared to other cults that we have talked about and that we will. cover in the future as we move forward.

This was a cult where the people inside, the 38 members plus their leader, Marshall Applewhite, now you know who he is. There he is. Glad I didn't take that guy. This wasn't about ending things in like a despair of the end of the world kind of

scenario. It was in their kind of like very meticulous constructed worldview, a graduation, an exit from flawed human containers. And it was just that their death was simply a necessary step to board a real spacecraft, trailing the Halbop comet and ascend to the evolutionary level above human or known as Tila. Doobie brothers.

Oh. No, no, yeah, close, close. Tila. T-E-L-A-H. T-L-A-H. T-L-A-H. T-L-T-L-E-L-H. Yeah, yeah.

To even, like, begin to unpasteful. how this group kind of even arrived at that conclusion. You can't just start at the end where everybody already knows what happened and see it as the insanity. You have to spool it all back, way back to the kind of the source, as with most cults. You need to understand not just the one individual who is seen as the key leader, but the two whose deeply personal struggles and intense spiritual searching fused to create this weird movement between Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Lou Nettles, who is the other person I called one of you.

Now, would you say she's more or less culpable? Oh, she's equally as culpable. But I, this is stuff we are not going to touch until next episode. So I don't want to, but like, I don't know if a certain event happened in Bonnie's life if it didn't, if it would have led to everybody dying. I think one thing ended up leading to everybody dying. The other thing you have to keep in mind, too, is like, unlike a lot of other cult leaders, Marshall Applewhite is extremely not charismatic in so many ways.

These people, including Applewhite, when we really dive into who these people were, the cult for them and their escape via human body were all deeply rooted in how much they just didn't feel like they fit in this world. in that like they they just social outcasts you know it's like prime cult yeah like people weren't being forced to stay they weren't being forced like a lot of other people where they don't get to keep their things and all this stuff like this was truly a group of people who at least until i would say maybe the very end fully was in on all of this and i'll leave it at that because there's a lot i want to talk about but that's going to be more later on so as we got dive into the two people individually, again, Marshall Appleoy and Bonnie Lou Nettles, you need to understand

the strange brew of like cultural energies swirling around in America in the early 70s, which is when this all kind of got going. Because Heaven's Gate wasn't just born overnight. It evolved over close to 25 years. It wasn't just a suicide cult, though that's what the label that stuck at the end of it all. It was to its adherence, a highly demanding, all-encompassing, quote-unquote, unquote, quote, classroom,

a path that's designed to strip away every vestige of humanness of you and prepare them for a literal, physical transformation into extraterrestrial beings because heaven was an actual physical place that they would go to. You know,

Jesus was an alien, that kind of aspect of things. Yeah, Jack Kirby kind of weird shit out in the cosmos. That's the Rayleighan element too. Yes, exactly. As I said, it's like the closest thing I could think of that we've talked about is to compare it to. But the Rayleans are like the beer, B tier heavens game.

Yeah, the Brailians are like a little groovier and they just kind of seem to want to eat chimmy churry sauce and meat. Yeah, exactly. Is that the best way to describe them? They're just like, they just like want to get their shirts off and like, is that? I feel like when we were talked about them, there was like, uh, there's some weird clone stuff, but that's not like. stuff that fell off a little off. That's not like the people. It's like mostly like what they do is they just like meet up. I mean if we're talking comparatively, one group is very much alive and the other group killed themselves. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I wasn't going to go there. But yes. Yes. Fair enough.

You know, but who had better fashion? Oh, relians. Oh. Well, you know what? It's toss. It's kind of a toss up. It's kind of a toss up. The railions are pretty groovy. Also, the fashion of, uh, the, the Heaven's Gate cult was very much like we base it off of the end. I don't know what it was like. I don't know what they were wearing day today. We just base it off their final outfit choice. I will say fashion choice that passed through is cutting off their own balls.

What now? Marshall Applewhite just, you know, balls were, weren't necessary. So part of people went through castrations for this call. I thought you said they weren't doing that kind of stuff. When did I say that? didn't you didn't you say this was like you know this like groovy cult everyone's hanging yeah but they they got to a point where their bodies were such a meaningless thing to them that they were such no like they didn't manage cut their balls off to remove the desires that they didn't want to worry that

work yeah was there one guy who just didn't dude you are literally exactly correct there's one dude who was so fucking horny and saved his life he left the cult because he just wanted to come i'm not cutting my dick off yes yes you're That guy, that guy gets it. Yeah. I'm so glad. Yeah, there was one dude who was just like, no, man, I like this.

I like this thing. I'm starting to think you're all crazy. This is my little guy in here. I don't want to take my little, this is one of my only happy things. What are you guys doing? I'm starting to think you're all insane people. Wait a minute.

This is not what I thought it was. Yeah. This whole improbable journey started with the collision of these two souls, though. Applewhite, the preacher's son who would be turned tormented music professor, at least in his own mind, wrestling with his identity and his own sexuality and definitely his own sanity, along with Bonnie Nettles, the nurse, the nurse and mother diving headfirst into astrology,

theosophy, which made dingle some bells out there. And of course, what else for any good cult channeling spirits from other dimensions? Obviously. And their meeting in 1972 wasn't just a chance encounter. At least it was in their minds cosmically ordained. It sparked an immediate, intense, but strictly platonic partnership that became the crucible for their unique ideology. They would begin weaving together threads from radically different traditions. Applewhite's background provided a framework that was rooted in Protestant Christianity,

particularly the dramatic end-time prophecies of the Book of Revelations, and Nettles contributed the esoteric language and concepts of the new age, including spiritual evolution, ascended masters, and crucially for this cult, a belief in UFOs and benevolent space aliens coming to pick them up from this horrible planet. And the timing couldn't have scripted it better. It was the early 70s, which was filled with like this disillusionment after Vietnam, widespread questioning of government and traditional institutions,

a hunger for alternative forms of spirituality. The counterculture's message of dropping out and seeking enlightenment through unconventional means that primed the generation to look beyond mainstream in some spheres. Just got everybody ready for being like Primo co-fotter. Yeah, exactly. The 60s were filled with the abuse and lead of serial killers. In the 70s were the coming of age as all the free love people from the 60s.

You know, and like, and you add to this to the surge of UFO site, around this time, the popularization of theories about ancient astronauts and the government cover-ups. It was like a perfect storm for this particular cult. And they got to exist into the early days of the internet, which also really made them have like a kind of a concrete stamp on the cultural memory. Into this cultural soup step, quote unquote, the two of them, or as they called themselves, the two as they first, yeah, they're offering a radical path that promised transcelling. escape and a literal journey to the stars.

This is where the story truly begins. Not in the quiet mansion in 97 where everybody died, but in the messy lives of the fervent beliefs that converged decades earlier. So as we dive into the deep, deep shit, let me just go ahead and shout out my main source. The book is called Heavens Gate America's UFO Religion by author Benjamin Zeller. Also, the UFO documentary. I can't remember the name of it.

I watched it on Internet Archive. I watched about three or four documentaries. There's a ton out there. There's so much shit you can go ahead and just watch about this that is valuable and entertaining. There's endless, like stuff. And hours of listening to fucking Marshall Applewhite himself to learn how utterly meaningless and dribble,

dribble this dude just spills. He never answers questions. It's constant, just vague nonsense. And I'm going to give you a taste of that in a little bit. So, Oh, yum, yum, yum, yum. Let's start all the way at the beginning. Marshall,

Hurf, Applewhite Jr. Or HIRF to those who knew him early in his life. Well, how do you spell herf? H-E-R-F-F. That's really in there. That's really his middle name.

Okay. That is actually his middle name. That's our boy, Hurf. And his nickname and that what people referred to him as. Hewf. He was born on May 17th, 1931 in Spurr, which is a tiny town in West Texas.

And his father, Marshall Hurf Applewhite Senior was a respected Presbytery. Yeah, it's just a man, you think you wouldn't want to pass that on to your son. That feeling feels mean, you know, like just change his middle name at the very least. His father was a respected Presbyterian minister, a calling that kept the family moving frequently. This upbringing undoubtedly immersed young Applewhite here in religious language. and expectations, shaping his worldview even as he later wrestled with its constraints.

Accounts kind of suggest that childhood marked by both promise and pressure from his parents. He was recognized early on for his intelligence and talents, and after graduating from high school in Corpus Christi in 1948, he attended Austin College, a Presbyterian-affiliated school in Sherman, Texas, and then graduated from there in 1952. His college years were marked by leadership roles, maybe unsurprisingly. He was involved in student government, sang in the Acapella Choir, and was part of the campus group

for students considering ministry, suggesting a period where he seriously contemplating following his father's path that he did actually kind of pursue a little bit further. He even went on to the Union Theological Seminary in Virginia for two years, from 1952 to around 1954. But another current was pulling him

in a stronger direction. Marshall possessed significant artistic gifts, particularly in music and drama. He had, according to his friends at the time, a compelling baritone voice, excellent diction, and a natural stage presence that could hold an audience captive.

He also loved opera. He loved opera. So this is a type of stage presence that we don't love anymore in today's modern time. I'm talking about like when Dracula comes out on stage. Yes. And everybody just goes. Oh, wow.

How impressive. Yes, yes. It's exactly that time period. And honestly, if I hadn't read that, I never would have guessed that that he was perceived that way because after listening to that man's voice again for hours, I had felt my brain physically turning into a thick, viscous goo. He is mind-numbing to listen to. And I'm going to play you one example right now as his charisma from a tape called, well, let me just, he'll kill.

He's going to say the name of the tape. Uh, this is just, here we go. We're going to talk to you about the most urgent thing that is on our mind. And what we suspect is the most urgent thing on the minds of those who will connect with us. We'll title this tape. Planet Earth about to be recycled. Is you just shoot from the hip?

Your only chance to evacuate is to leave with us. Planet Earth about to be recycled. Your only chance to survive or evacuate is to leave with us.

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You know You know what's crazy about that Is if you hadn't said This is a cult thing And I didn't know what Heaven Gate was I would have said to you Man I can't believe you found that

Audio recording In fallout Of a group of people that went crazy And you discovered their lost barracks or whatever It's what it sounds like And on that tape I watched the tape. You're right, Alex, because he's doing like the thing

where he's looking up and rolling his eyes around when he's like, uh, this tape is, uh, called. And he's just fucking improvving unlike the tape. They're like, we're going to call. He's like, we're going to call it. Uh, and then he says some shit that sounds like that. Like the name of an episode of Pokemon. Or Dragon Ball Z.

Planet Earth about to be recycled. Your only chance of. survival is with us. Can you imagine taking that to the printer? I don't wonder. Like in the video itself is like, he's sitting in front of a blue blank screen super zoomed into just his shoulders and the top of his ball,

like his head and his bald end and his kind of like wide-eyed empty gaze. That's what most people remember about all the video footage of the cult is his face and eyes and the way he just kind of looks out of it. Yeah, here. I'll send you a link to you boys and I'll try to make it in the show notes as well. But this is a part of the video itself. I just grabbed it. And you can just see what this dude is like doing and how he looks. Oh, yeah. That's our boy with his crazy, crazy eyes. It looks literally like fucking

David Byrne or some shit. Like it looks like some kind of weird fucked up Andy, Andy Warhol art film. It is a little bit of, uh, in Iron Man 3 when the, uh, what was it? The Mandarin would give speeches to. Yes. It's a little bit of that. Yeah, yeah, a little bit. Yeah, a little bit.

Yeah. A little wizard of Oz vibe like, yeah. Granted, this is like at the end of like what would be his life. This is the end of the cult there, you know, this little video clip. We're seeing him at what I would consider his worst, but still like all of his speeches through all of and listen to all just sound like this of just like this droning drivel. So I don't know what they were talking about in terms of what. Really makes me.

me check out just listening to his voice like it's really not I feel like that's also part of it yeah I the drone the way it like can influence and like dull your senses and the next thing he says is like cut off your balls like makes me like okay yeah like it makes people feel like it's like special or like like the word of God you know like the priests do that thing in Catholic church that's like chanting that's kind of like And you're like, what was that? No, no, no, no, no. They like say stuff.

I don't know the words, but they have like. Church, I miss it. You know, like, they say like a thing. And then everybody in the whole church kind of like in this kind of dead way kind of goes, oh, man. Yeah, it's kind of just. It feels, it feels good. It just feels good.

He's like, I really can't stay. Anyway, yeah, so back to him. His, his love for opera. though, like his genuine love for opera is the thing that actually pulled him away from the seminary. After fulfilling his military service obligation in the Army Signal Corps from 1946 to 1954 to 1956, he pursued his musical ambitions, eventually earning a master's degree in music with a focus on voice from the University of Colorado at Boulder by 1959. You can't tell me that this dude didn't know what he's doing then.

if he was trained in voice, that's not just like I learned to speak. It's also I learned to breathe, control what I say, how to communicate. This, yeah, no,

he's playing games. I think it's telling that his message, well, no, maybe not, it's not telling because there's only 38 people, which is kind of small for a cult that,

like, got this famous for what it did. They had to do a lot. They had to do a lot, but also they were extremely restrictive about who was allowed in. And you had to be particularly, like,

mundane in a lot of ways to be let in. Again, we'll get to it. We'll get to it. But yeah, I agree. No, he definitely knew what he was doing in terms of like training with his voice, but I still listen to him and I just, I don't get it. You know, it doesn't, I don't get it. He doesn't feel charismatic. He just feels insane. 100%. I mean, yeah, anyway.

So yeah, this early pivot for him, choosing the stage essentially over being a priest, wasn't just a career adjustment. It really signaled a fundamental tension between his inherited expectations from his parents in his personal inclination, a struggle with identity that would echo throughout his life because he was also, which would be revealed later, gay at a time where being gay was not great. The 50s, 60s, 70s. So he, in having a father. 80s, 90s, early 2000, 2010.

It doesn't really rock right now, I feel like. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, you're 100% correct. But, you know, in his unique situation of having a presbytery. and preach your father that's all doom and gloom anyway to compound it with the 50s look where you couldn't even talk about it openly really like it's sure it's a rough spot 100 his professional life though following graduation was a mix of achievement and instability mimicking what i imagine is how home life was he taught music including a stint as an assistant professor

at the university of alabama in the early 60s he tried and failed to make it as an actor in new York City. He found more traction back in Texas, landing a position around 1965 or 1966. I couldn't find the exact date to lead the music department at the University of St. Thomas, which is a Catholic university in Houston. Here, he did actually seem to flourish for a time where he could merge his religious beliefs and his love for performing. He became, he was becoming a recognized figure in Houston Arts in community, directing the choir at St. Mark's Episcopal Church and performing roles with the prestigious Houston Grand Opera. He juggled multiple roles working also as a rehearsal conductor, part-time English teacher, and even briefly, an occupational therapist.

But this period of professional activity was overshadowed and ultimately derailed by deep personal struggles. I thought you say by the time that he led a cult. Yeah, yeah, by the time he started heaven's gay. No, much is his own personal struggles, much of it stemming with the struggle with the sexuality in a deeply unaccepting environment. He literally put himself in a Catholic college. Whispers followed him from Alabama

that suggested his departure was linked to having a affair with a male student. There's no way for me to confirm whether that actually happened or not. I wasn't able to, but it's like a pretty prevalent rumor as to why that's why he was kind of pushed out. But whether it's true or not, this narrative kind of foreshadowed

the crisis that ended his time in St. Thomas. In 1970, he was abruptly dismissed or forced to resign and the official explanation cited emotional turmoil or health reasons of an emotional nature. But substantial accounts

point to another relationship with a male student as the immediate cause for him to be released. Damn. Yeah. Which is just like, if that's having a read about the 1970 case, I think that the previous

reason was also, he was definitely like dating a student. The university president himself later described Applewhite as seeming, quote, mentally jumbled and disorganized near the end. Around the same time, his musical ambitions also faltered. He withdrew from a lead opera role, citing vocal problems, but also acknowledging significant, quote, unquote, personal problems. In a subsequent attempt to run a delicatessen in New Mexico in 1971,

failed very quickly, a really hard pivot, which sent him back to Texas, kind of to be a drift again, his career ambitions now fully in tatters. Yeah, it almost felt like just like a panic, I don't know what to do.

So let's open a delicatessen. It's weird. Like, you ever been in that mindset before in your own life? Admittedly, yeah. I'd be like, I want time thought like, screw it.

If this isn't work out, it's just go be like, a baker or work a McDonald's like I if this doesn't work out I'm gonna go do a job where I don't have to boss anyone around and people just yell at me and I'm like that's what I want I feel like you go home and I don't think and I don't think daily isn't the rule of thumb like if you

starting any food business you'd expect two years of like basically being in the red before you can even break even yeah like it's hell no it's insane so yeah I don't know whatever he did he immediately failed um but this pattern to me anyway isn't just like he failed Yeah, he did. He just fucking was just like immediately. It just didn't do well.

Like I said, to me, this pattern doesn't seem like kind of like a random pattern of like bad luck for the dude. It was much more at least seemingly, again, to me a destructive cycle that is just directly linked to his inability to reconcile his sexuality and the prevailing social and religious condemnation of where he was working along with that of his parents. He even would eventually marry his marriage to Anne Pierce. which produced two children had ended after she reportedly discovered his involvement with another man. His own father's rejection upon learning of his orientation, obviously just sent him further down the depression path. Though he lived openly as a gay man for a time in Houston's Montrose neighborhood, which is notably accepting of gay people,

this didn't really bring him any peace. The damage was already done. A subsequent relationship with a woman ended due to her family, disapproval. Uh, his reported longing for a sexless devotion, a connection free from physical, uh,

complications. Yeah. Oh boy. Here we go. Oh, come on. That'll work fine, man. Have you ever, come on now.

Have you ever seen the, what is it? Is on TLC the show of like the gay guys that are married to women and the women know? And it's like this weird like conversion. Oh, I was thinking more about like, this guy's definitely going to tell people to cut their nuts off and join a call.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, it also reminded me of the crazy artist who was like couldn't handle his horny penis and so like cut his own dick off. His father was also a preacher. It's very similar. Yeah, but it's crazy. Yeah, sexless devotion for a relationship, like I said, a connection free from physical what he called complications.

I think speaks volumes about his internal conflict. Like this just speaks openly about what is would be. A chilling, as Jesse put it, precursor, shall we say. To the cult later obsession with celipacy to the extreme. Is that just death? No, that's the castration part. I guess technically. I mean, technically.

The constant clash for him between his inner self and the external world, leading to repeated professional and personal failures, just was the perfect breeding ground for a man in complete psychological distress. And the dam finally broke in the, the early 1970s, with the death of his father around 1971, which would be a huge problem for his own mental state, deepening his already very present depression. He was financially strapped to borrowing money from friends. And then the truly alarming symptoms began. Auditory hallucinations, vivid dreams. Really? Yeah. At least according to him. And what else,

but what else but the finishing touch for any cult leader emerging grandiose delusions including seeing himself as having a divine Christ-like mission because obviously Christ and God repicked the man who's losing his mind obviously his behavior became erratic enough

that he actually voluntarily checked himself into a psychiatric hospital he was like yeah I better do this yeah really Yeah, he literally was like, I'm yeah, some maybe I need to. And he went in around 1971, 1972. And while his sister later emphasized a near-death experience from a heart blockage as the catalyst for his transformation, the psychiatric, the psychiatric hospitalization narrative is more widely corroborated and fits the timeline of his escalating psychological crisis. And it felt more like the sister was trying to do almost reputation damage control and saying that he was breaking because.

if he was what actually happened. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But from what we can get from interviews of people who were there, paperwork and stuff, it seems like no, he was maybe losing his mind a little bit due to all the mental health issues that he wasn't being addressed. Some speculate that he may have sought hospitalization partly hoping for a cure to his homosexuality, reflecting, again, this misguided psychiatric approaches at the time because he just thought

it was something wrong with his brain. retrospective analysis by scholars suggest that these symptoms align strongly with the onset of paranoid schizophrenia, typically manifesting in one's late 30s or early 40s, and Applewhite was at that time right around that age. And while he experimented with hallucinogenics previously, maybe seeking spiritual insight or trying to just simply find an escape from his emotional turmoil, conventional therapy had apparently just failed him. So you have now Applewhite in an institute in 1972.

His career destroyed. Relationships failed. Grieving his father, financially desperate, deeply depressed, tormented by his own sexuality, and now experiencing undeniable psychotic symptoms with hearing voices, believing he was divine. His grip unconventional reality was shattered. It was, he was too far, in a lot of ways, I don't want to say anybody's too far gone,

but he is really far. I'm going to be honest. I kind of wish I thought I was like a Christ-like figure because it would make like getting up in the morning and like getting through my day like just a little easier. Like genuinely, I feel like it would be a little easier. Yeah. Only a little easier though? I don't know.

I mean, depends on how I'm actually doing. But sure, sure. It just feels like if I didn't care that much, it would feel better. You've never, you've never thought that way and I can tell. As someone who frequently sees himself as a Christlike. figure too much stress.

So many people looking up to you, trying to, like, what should we do? Oh, great one. And it's like every day. I didn't think about that. Figure it out yourself. No, that must be tough. It's the worst. There will be like a mortal who wants to just use your powers for a day or two and you

don't have to worry about it. But it's too much. No. I've watched Bruce Almighty. Oh, okay. I didn't know if that existed in your reality. Oh, I've seen I've seen the good word

Right Bruce Almighty So it's in this You don't want it is what I'm saying No no You want to catch this smoke What was the one with What was the other reality shattering?

Not reality The other one, the Bruce Almighty sequel Evan Almighty with Steve Krell Yeah that one I didn't see that one That's all right All right so it's in this So just in this context

Of where this man is in this utterly mental, destructive reality destroying place. It's where he is where he encounters Bonnie Lou Nettles. And crucially, the strange, complex belief system that they would forge together in, let me tell you,

I try, and I'll try to explain it next week, what this belief system is. It is fucking nonsense. Either way, it doesn't, it doesn't. Why is all I'm,

can think of Helena Bonham Carter from Fight Club. What's up with that? I've only seen Fight Club. What's her name? Marla? A long time ago. Yeah. Well, whatever. You guys, you guys. If you're out there, if you know, you know, you got it. Yeah. You know what's up. You get it. If you know,

you know, you fucking know. You know. You know. Okay. This complex strange belief system that they would force together appears almost tailor made to address his Marshall Applewhite specifically. his deepest wounds, the rejection of his physical body, the absolute suppression of sexuality

and severing of all of his earthly ties. All testicles. Oh, ball. I'm sorry. I didn't realize. The Boston baked bean boy? That's where he came from? He's where he came from.

He's Marshall Applewhite's testicles. Oh, fuck. That's not the lore I want to do. You know what? I know. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not.

I'm not. I need to like think before. I don't want to. It's not. I need to like think before. Why is what are these beans? Apple. Apple has testicles.

Is the Boston Bay Boy? Nobody's seen him in the same room before? Oh, what you're telling me? Oh, God. I don't like this. I can't be part of his lore. That it cannot be part of his lore.

All right. Find out. You vote on patreon.com slash Chaluminati pod. Is Beanboy Marshall Applewhite's balls? Yes or no? No, dude. Just kidding.

Not a real poll. But you can make a fake one on our subreddit. We can do that. So the severing of all of earthly ties and, of course, the promise of escape to a higher level. It's as if the cult's core, tenants provided a cosmic rationalization for and a radical solution to the very conflicts that were tearing him apart.

And Bonnie Lou Nettles, huh? Nothing. I just, it's, I don't know. It's, it makes perfect sense to me. That's all I said, huh. Okay. Bonnie Lou Nettles presents a kind of a different, though equally compelling path toward that faithful 1972 meeting, too.

born Bonnie Lou Truesdale in Houston on August 29th, 1927. She was like, I want to sound British. Yeah, yeah. Her early life seemed outwardly far more conventional than Apple Whites. She grew up in a Baptist family, though friends noted her church attendance later seemed more social than deeply pious. She pursued a problem. Yeah, no, like, no one else who goes to church. I would say she's more of a social Christian than anything.

anything I would characterize as deeply pious. Well, think about it. That's around the 30s and early 40s. You know, as she's growing up. What else are you going to fucking do? No, you're right. You're 100% right.

I mean, that's not changed. The vast majority of people I know who go to church, go to church because it's like the social thing. Well, I got to show up. If I don't, they'll all judge me.

Yeah, yeah. Funny, the judgment of others is a lot of things. It's a big part of the brand in most churches. Yeah, no shit. Uh,

she also pursued a practical, some would say caring profession graduating from Herman Hospital School of Professional Nursing in 1948 as a working and working as a registered nurse and in December 1949 she married a Joseph Segal

Nettles and described him as a successful businessman Seagull. Seagull? Oh not Seagull. I thought you said Joseph Seagull like I did say it like that. Yeah like it was his nickname they called him old Seagull. I thought you meant like his name was Joseph Spelled like that. Is that Segal? That's Segal probably. That's fine. Just the way you said it. It sounded like Joseph Seagull.

Nettle. I just didn't have it in front of me. I just didn't have it in front of me. I just want to know. Yeah. It changes it for me. Like depending on which one. Oh, a great deal. Agreed. Yeah. That's all. Yeah. Descrees described as a successful businessman and they raised four kids. And for over two decades, this picture of middle class domesticity held strong. But beneath the surface, particularly by the late 1960s and early 70s, Bonnie was embarking on an intense inner journey, exploring realms far removed from traditional Baptist faith or suburban life.

Her marriage began to unravel, partly attributed to her husband's disapproval of her burgeoning spiritual interests, and they divorced in 1973. The personal upheaval coincided with and was fueled by her deepening immersion in the SOT. Terrick. And when she left Houston with Applewhite in early 1973, she made the difficult decision,

at least she said it was difficult, to leave her three younger children with their father, her eldest daughter, Terry, already an adult at that point, and deeply, was already deeply concerned about her mother's mental state, was left on her own. And like Applewhite, Nettles was at a major life juncture, a point of crisis, a trade in transaction, rather in transition that made her receptive to radical change. Bonnie's spiritual explorations were wide-ranging and deeply felt. She developed a profound interest in the occult, astrology, various forms of other mysticism, and her involvement wasn't casual.

She formally joined... Fucked to this shit. Dude, just wait. She formally joined, in a way, what we're about to mention, is responsible for Heaven's Gate. She formally joined the Houston Lodge of... the Theosophical Society. I already know this is going to make me annoyed. In America.

She formally joined the Houston Lodge of the Theosophical Society in America in February 1966 and remained a member until 1973. Theosophy, if you may remember, was founded in the late 19th century by who else, but Madame Helena Blavatsky. Yeah. And with the partner, Henry. steal all caught. Again, one day we'll do Blavatsky. And it is because of Blavatsky's belief, as she's been brought up in multiple episodes before, that set Bonnie on this path of hidden

masters and theosophy. That when she clashed and met... The influence of evil, like for real. Apple, it's crazy. And when she, so when she met Applewhite, who was in his delusions, it was a perfect chemistry to create this insane cult. without Blavatsky's influence, who is maybe arguably in a lot of ways, one of the most influential figures in history, whether people realize it or not.

In the shadows, definitely. It's crazy that this may not have existed without her. When I read her name, it's like a fucking expanded universe. She's everywhere. She's a Thanos. Everywhere. Yeah, she's a Thanos.

Yeah. Because of her, this, her belief, Theosophy, offered a complex, syncretic system, blending elements of Eastern religions, which is Hinduism, Buddhism, Western esoterism, and pseudoscience, key philosophical concepts like the evolution of the soul through reincarnation, communication with hidden spiritual masters, the secret masters, sometimes conceived as extraterrestrial

in some branches of theology, access to knowledge, nois, and the veneration of science would all find echoes, albeit transformed, within heaven's fucking game. Their beliefs are direct knockoffs of theosophy. Offshoots like the IM movement, which was popular in the mid-20th century, emphasized communication with embodied ascended masters, offering guidance from spiritual or extraterrestrial realms,

providing a direct precedent for the kind of communication that Bonnie Nettles believed she was engaging in. Nettles didn't necessarily. just study these ideas. She practiced them. She became an amateur astrologer, even writing a newspaper column on the subject. She actively cultivated what she believed were her psychic abilities, holding regular seances in her home to channel spirits. Her primary contact was allegedly a 19th century Franciscan monk named Brother Francis. But... Why did you say it like that? This is like the most boring name that, like, she has his regular spirit.

that she made him sound like a plug. You made him sound like my plug downtown. Brother Francis. Right. Yeah, exactly. It's brother Francis. Um,

but she also believes that she believed to have channeled spirits from the planet Venus as well as Marilyn Monroe herself. Well, obviously. Yeah, everybody's got to have one channeling session. You got to see me. You got to say what's up to Maryland at least.

Yeah. Give her away. Uh, yeah, this firm believes she had an ability to communicate with these freaking ghosts, be they human spirits or extraterrestrials. Well, the aliens aren't ghosts.

I shouldn't have said that. Aliens are just like these spiritual beings. They could be ghosts of ourselves if you think about it. Fuck, you might be right. You might be right. If you think of that right. This is all central to her own identity. And furthermore, prophecy and destiny were major themes in her personal belief system

too. She consulted multiple fortune tellers who she believed predicted her encounter with Marshall Applewhite, describing a, tall, fair-haired, light-complexioned man, which is the most vague fucking description you can give and apply to literally anybody. But hey, it worked for her. She said, oh, you know, he look like a man.

Yeah, that is, uh, do you think our viewers know that reference? I'm surprised you do, to be honest. Matt TV, I used to watch that on my little tiny TV in my room every night. Of all the shows, I believe that. My little tiny TV in my room every night is a new part of the Mathis Lord that I did not know about. I'm taking it with me. Yeah, yeah.

Every little piece you learn about me that you feel like helps build the pictures. One, why I am the way in? 100. 100 one. Yeah. So she described this like very generic man. And she later.

Tiny TV, dude. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Like a little tiny like box TV. No, I know exactly what you.

Didn't have a radio built into it. No, no. Damn. Yeah. Those were the TV. Potter. Yeah.

I had one with the VH to like a little VHS player way later after DVDs were a thing. I got that. I remember that. Hell yeah. Yeah. She later came to interpret this meeting, not just as faded, though,

this meeting with Apple White, but as specifically arranged by extraterrestrial spirit guides. This predisposition to see events through a lens of prophecy and otherworldly alien intervention just primed her for the intense connection

she was about to feel when she met Marshall Applewhite. And it's impossible to overstate Bonnie's role as the ideological, not only catalyst, but center in the formation of Heaven's Gate. In ways that we don't understand unless you do the research, Bonnie is the true core, the true heart, the true leader of Heaven's Gate. And while Applewhite brought his undeniable charisma and performance skills that were so touted and a fractured Christian background, so Applewhite was the face essentially, the decided face

of Heaven's Gate. The charismatic face, if you will. It's fucking wild. It was Nettles who provided the essential esoteric and extraterrestrial content. Her established worldview, steeped in theosophy from Madame Blavovsky. Like actual, like, Crowley and occultism. Yes. That is one's the center of Heaven's Gate.

And I don't think most people know this. I didn't. No. It's her beliefs. It was, Heaven's Gate is built around her. Her beliefs steeped, like I said, in Madam Blavatsky's theosophy, astrology, spirit and extraterrestrial channeling, prophecy and a belief in UFOs and ancient astronauts, all offered the interpretive framework that transformed Applewhite's potentially terrifying psychotic

experience that he checked into the hospital for with voices and delusions of grandeur into what he now saw as evidence of divine contact. This all was not him going crazy. It was evidence that he was the chosen one. And she didn't just validate his experiences. She also became the interpreter for his experiences, filtering what he said he experienced through her specific metaphysical knowledge and vocabulary

infused his personal mental crisis happening in front of her with her spiritual system that may have felt like to him fixed everything. But in reality, merely just slap some duct tape over it for the foreseeable future. She was, in essence, the architect providing the blueprint and materials that Marshall Applewhite's charisma would build into this new religious reality. That's fucking crazy, dude.

It's nuts. I did not know any of that. And I've watched, I've watched like more than one documentary about this in my life, I would say. Nobody knows it was Bonnie Nettle's name. nobody and we'll talk about that obviously we're going to talk about why and what happened and like why your name is forgotten it's all very very important but it's really important that you understand why i wanted to rewind that like yeah martial apple white is the face you know him you see him as the leader he kind of presented himself as such but the one pulling the strings the one he built or built

there's the he they built this around was her in the convergence of these two people searching troubled individuals in March of 1972 remains a pivotal, if slightly murky because we don't really know the exact details of how that meeting went down, but it became the pivotal moment in the Heaven's Gate origin story. The setting most accounts have said was a Houston hospital where Bonnie Nettles worked

as a nurse. Applewhite's reason for being there, however, is where the narrative kind of diverges depending on source. We don't know if he was simply visiting a friend recovering from surgery as he and another later recounted. Or if he was there due to a serious heart condition, perhaps connected to this near-death experience from the heart condition her sister talked about. Heart condition?

Yeah, her sister's story was that he had a near-death experience because of a pulmonary something, and that's what made him see and start hearing God. But most accounts contradict that and say that he was just starting to lose it and like slip on reality. his dad dying, his suppressed, you know, sexuality, all that stuff was just coming to a head. So, or there was another third version as to why he was at the hospital. As somebody by the name of Evan Thomas claimed, and a man by the name of Bulk considered

most possible is that a patient in a psychiatric unit possibly seeking treatment for his profound inner conflicts, maybe even a cure for his homosexuality, is where he met, met Bonnie that while he was in the hospital. All we know is that he was in the hospital in March of 1972, but we don't know the details of that meeting. We don't know if he was in there for mental health. We don't know if he was in there because of surgery he had or if we don't know if he was in there visiting a friend who had surgery

because we don't have the paperwork. We don't have the records of this. We don't know. We just know they met in the hospital. And we've heard multiple stories as to why. honestly, to me, he was probably in there for his mental health when she met him.

That that seems to track the most. There are other even less common accounts that place their initial meeting elsewhere, like one in Applewhite's drama classes where Nettles reportedly attended it or through Applewhite tutoring Nettles' daughter, Applewhite himself in his later writings often glossed over the specifics of how they met,

which is why we don't fucking know because he doesn't really talk about it. he preferred in his writings anyway to emphasize the sense of destiny and immediate recognition that kind of defined their encounter. He wanted to frame it as a moment of godly fate, of divine intervention. This was meant to happen. This had to occur. It doesn't matter how it happened.

It just did. And that's it. But it doesn't really, honestly, and at the end, does it really matter? Regardless of the precise location they're met, the impact was immediate and electric on both of their lives. the sources, no matter what we talk, who the source is, consistently describe no matter what, a powerful, instantaneous connection between the two of them, like a eyes locked, a feeling of having known her forever.

I mean, you guys have had, where you meet somebody that, like, you've never met before, but there's something about you become immediate friends or you're just like, this girl is special or, and listeners out there maybe, just like, it's very rare, but that's what happened here, where it was just the chemistry was right. and it was like, shit, I belong with you. But not in a sexual way. Just Simba Nala. Well, I guess they ended up together sexually.

Yeah, yeah, not quite that way. Both felt this uncanny sense of predestined reunion. Perhaps maybe from past lives, she would go on to wonder. Nettles already steeped in prophecy and channeling by now, saw Applewhite as the fulfillment of predictions that were made by the fortune tellers she went to. and even perhaps extraterrestrial guides. Applewhite desperately seeking someone to help him understand his

disturbing inner experiences in mental health, saw in Bonnie the astrologer and mystic, the guide that he needed all this time. He famously at one point recounted running to his car to get his birth certificate so she could immediately do his astrological chart. He was so excited to learn what the stars had in store for him. He just talks about all the time. I would run out.

there and get his birth to him so he's so he's just a dude who really truly in his core was looking for some sort of guidance in a life that he had he felt he didn't care if it was just straight up psycho it's the occum's razor of every every person who ends up in his mental health situation he needed parents well i mean trauma and support like you need to support he definitely needed support but i feel like he there was something deeper inside this man that there were support systems, but it wasn't ones that gave him what he was exactly looking for. So his search of religion is he looking for some higher power, higher authority to guide him in a confused life. But in many of those religious spaces, the person that he was being gay was frowned upon.

So that wasn't the place for him. So you can see him hopping around from place to place to place trying to find where he fits in where he both A is accepted and B, is given that sort of spiritual need which is why he isn't settling on like a Judeo-Christian thing he's trying to everything so even the idea of her being like

hey I have mystic abilities he's like oh my God tell me all about it and so I like I get it I understand where he's coming from as a person who just really wants to feel like there's more to what's going on around him but that's also the same reason that people get involved

in cults and you see people become cultists because there's like, there must be more. Why is life the way it is? There must be more. And then they get dragged in by people who are like, yeah, yeah, sure, there's more. Cut your balls off. And you're like, okay, I guess less means more. He just learned that the hard way that no matter how much he tried to follow his religion, he couldn't pray the gay away because you just can't.

That's who you are. There's nothing you can do about it. And he couldn't find it. And so now that comes this woman who's like, no, no, no, I have this. real answers and it's fine. Don't worry about it. Here's the reality. So he goes out and gets his birth birth certificate to read his chart and of course the chart, he gets his birth certificate to read his chart, and confirmed their past connection from past lives and their shared vital mission in this lifetime that they're both experiencing right now. Yeah. Yeah, I got into question.

What chart? What chart? His astrological signs, his chart. His chart. It's like start chart. When he was born, was the sun coming up, all that shit. Again, just like those who love going to psychics or tarot card readers, whether there's any validity, validily, validily, it's like a valid Italy. I'm Stanley Tochi, and this is validity. If there's any validity to any of that, mostly at the end of the day, people just want to be told everything's going to be cool. Everything can be all right.

And so even if you're like, I don't believe in the idea of a tarot card reader or fortune teller, they are providing a service to people who just want to be told, hey, fair enough. You're gonna, you know what? You're gonna,

you're gonna be all right. So even though I may think it's all hogwash, I do kind of enjoy it. I do, I will go get a, like a tarot reading from time to time just to be like. Absolutely. Yeah,

that was fun. Oh yeah. How do you do that? Yeah. I love, because basically they're reading your personality, right? So I'm like,

how do you do that? It's like a tool made for introspection, you know? Yeah, exactly. It's a way, it's literally way exactly that for you to like probably think about things you wouldn't otherwise because you're a you're framing

it in a unique way for your brain and yeah it's it's interesting i love to be honest it's nice to have someone read you as a person to see you and probably the way you see yourself you know what i mean like you get someone who's not a friend who you don't really know to be like ah looking for love our way and you're like how'd you know that oh my god this is about me do you ever feel the breaking down Oh my God. Thank you so much to Hello Fresh for sponsoring today's episode. And are you tired of figuring out what's for dinner night after night, especially on those busy weekdays?

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it's what provided the framework for both to attempt to and successfully recontextualized their recent struggles and suffering. Their personal crises were no longer just failures or tragedies that happened in their lives. They were part of a confusing but ultimately meaningful transition guided by higher forces. Applewhite quickly came to view Nettles as his indispensable spirit. partner, the sage who possessed the knowledge that he lacked, perhaps even initially acknowledging her as the senior member in their partnership. Their bond was incredibly intense, forming the absolute core of this movement, as I've said time and again, and yet crucially, I have to remind everybody, it was always described by both themselves and early followers

as entirely platonic and non-sexual. This, which is also unique, for a cult leader because most cult leaders they're all about the fucking. They're fucking their wives. Maybe they have three wives. And then before they can marry the person in the cult, they got to sleep with them. And then it's like, yeah, this is very,

I wouldn't say unique, but rare in the cult world. And this dynamic mirrored Apple Whites expressed desire for a sexless devotion like wife in his deep-seated conflicts around physical intimacy, while still simultaneously establishing the foundation for the extreme celibacy

that would become a defining characteristic of the cult as a whole. They became an inseparable unit, and on New Year's Day, 1973, they both left their old lives in Houston behind to fully embark on their shared quest. That is insane, dude. The very ambiguity surrounding their first encounter

is just one of the parts where it adds to a lore, a shared mythos, whether Nettles believed aliens arranged or Applewhite felt it was destiny, they instantly frame their meeting not as happenstance, but as a cosmically, good lord, significant event. This pattern of weaving personal experience into grand supernatural crazy narrative and of finding divine meaning and crisis and coincidence rather, this is their fundamental mode of operation from here on now. It allowed them to interpret everything that followed, recruitment successes and failures, societal reactions,

astronomical events as further evidence confirming their unique mission in the reality of what they called the next level. This is the intellectual and spiritual ferment, shall we call it, following Applewhite and Nettles' 1972 meeting. Did it say, ferment? Yeah, like a spiritual ferment. Yeah, I like that. I like that. Produced kind of just like a weird thing. Theological synthesis. It was emerging of streams a mix of like, a kind of mix and match theology, born from her philosophical, esoteric world and his very Protestant Christian world. A familiarity with biblical narratives on his part, particularly the dramatic prophecies

of the book of revelation, a vocabulary of sin, salvation, and divine mission inherited from his upbringing in the performance skilled hone. perhaps for the pulpit but now redirected, Nettles provided the vibrant, often startling colors of esoteric in the burgeoning New Age movement, a working knowledge of theosophy, astrology, spiritualism,

a deep belief, at least according to her, in channeling spirits in alien intelligences, and a framework emphasizing spiritual evolution and hidden knowledge. And as Robert Balk aptly summarized, which we'll talk about him in more detail in the future, quote, herb Applewhite supplied the Christianity

and Bonnie Nettles supplied the spiritualism. Their initial joint ventures clearly illustrate this blend and the Christian Art Center operated briefly in 1972 out of the Unitarian Church where Applewhite was music director offered classes spanning religion, art, music, astrology, meditation, and mysticism. The name itself kind of suggests an attempt to bridge traditional Christianity with alternative practices.

it's quick demise though possibly hastened by concerns over nettle's seance activities that she was doing which is not very okay to church sure led them to establish what was now what was known as quote unquote the no place k-n-o-w not the n-o like the yeah yeah sounds like it's from like yeah so it's easier to see fantasy shit or something yeah that's the no place this is kind of a metaphysical center where the esoteric and the new age elements kind of became more dominant. Here, the name played on multiple meanings, looking at self-know-know-thyself and utopian placelessness, no place. It's a play on words. And they sold their theosophical materials alongside other texts, which was a confluence of Nettles and his

background. And it was during their time period of kind of relative withdrawal. and moving away from those people they knew well and kind of just fusing together as a unit. They did a ton of studying, a ton of discussion, primarily between late 1972 and mid-1974, that the foundational concepts of their new unique worldview really began to solidify, and the merging of their two beliefs became kind of unseparable. A cornerstone was their radical reinterpretation of the Bible itself, the Christian. Bible, filtered through who else's, but Bonnie's, esoteric,

and UFO lens. And by July 1973, while camping near the Rogue River in Oregon, they experienced a key realization they were the two witnesses, quote unquote, prophesized in Revelation 11. That's them. The Bible was talking about them

the whole time. And this passage was central. They embraced the narrative, that they would preach a final message, be killed, by antagonistic forces, the beast from the revelation, lie dead for three and a half days and then... And then they get to come back. Is that it? Bingo.

Well, then spectacularly resurrect and ascend into a cloud. And that cloud applying their materialistic and extraterrestrial belief. Yeah. It was unequivocally in their world, a UFO. The cloud was a spacecraft from the next... level. They even produced a mimiographed pamphlet. I don't know how to spell this, but, or how to pronounce this rather, pamphlet around this time. And I cut this from the newspaper. It was called statement number three that basically just to boil down a lot of rambling,

hinted at Jesus's return in the form of a Texan, clearly implying and talking about Marshall Applewhite. That whole pamphlet that they wrote out was basically, a weird way of being like, yo, Marshall Applewhite's actually Jesus guys. That's so fucking bold. Like, like, whatever, you know, but like, that's so fucking bold.

It's funny is what it is. Of all the things. This guy's the one that's like, cut off your balls, guys. You don't need it. I'm Jesus. You don't need your balls. It always gets there, though, doesn't it?

It really doesn't matter. Like, remind me. Genitals are always involved in some way. Remind me to, unless you're doing it, we got to do Waco. Take Waco. I'll take Waco. Because I feel like, go for it. Yeah.

I'm going to make a note because Waco is the exact, like, everything's fine. Everything's fine. It's fine. I'm Jesus. Every time it gets there. And then it's like, and now we have to fight the government. It's like, what? Bro, what?

Again, that one guy who walked away is the real hero of the story. You know, like, yes. No, I'm all right. I'm keeping this thing. I love this guy. I love touching my penis. I can't do this guy. I'm sorry.

I need it. Yeah, and in this integration of UFOs into the Bible, it wasn't about just one Bible passage either. It became the fundamental organizing principle of their cosmology. They reasoned that Jesus hadn't merely ascended into a spiritual heaven. No, he had boarded a spacecraft and traveled to a literal physical next. level. You have to understand when I say next level, I'm not like using playful words. It's capital n capital L. That's what physical heaven is called. Headed to the next level. The next level.

To the next level. It's like the good place. Capital T, capital G, capital P. Yeah, exactly. It's a good place. And then, or again, as they call it, the evolutionary level above human, Tila. Remember? Right. Tila tequila. They likewise, the two of them were not mere humans. Now they were emissaries from that same physical extraterrestrial level sent to Earth on a crucial mission. Well, yeah. Apple Wright's writings from after his 1975 imprisonment state from the from his after his 1975 imprisonment because he got caught stealing state explicitly explaining his realization that they were aliens extraterrestrials inhabiting human bodies, possibly what he deemed walk-ins.

who had entered adult bodies prepared for them. They're reading. Yeah, I know. It's more like disassociation mixed with depersonalization and schizophrenia. All right. Their reading wasn't confined to just scripture anymore. They consumed science fiction works by the authors like Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clark, whose visions of space travel, advanced beings and transforms consciousness resonated with.

And I would even argue, helped them develop. shape their, develop and shape their narrative. And while present from early on, they consciously recognized later that the UFO angle was actually a potent tool for attracting attention and both from a potential followers within the burgeoning UFO subculture and from the media. And they fucking embraced it. They called themselves the UFO cult. That is what they did.

And intertwining with this with cosmic drama, intertwined rather with this cosmic Drama was the demanding path of personal transformation that they called human individual metamorphosis, or him, which also served as an early name for the group before they settled on Heaven's Gate. They just called themselves human individual metamorphosis. That's what they were. Human individual metamorphosis. We are here to play jazz from instruments that we made with our own hands. We are going to paint our message on our bodies with music. Three, four.

Yeah, I mean, sometimes watch a daredevil. I pictured a group showing up at Xavier's school, and they're like, we are the human individual metamorphosis, and now we're here to fucking take over. Like a bad guy version of the X-Men. That's not led by Magneto, but led by somebody dumber. Yeah. All right. You know, that's where my brain went.

I'm sorry. You've clearly never read. Yeah, no. I'll tell you guys about the X-Men one day. Please, that's not. They would never do that. My X-Men would never. To me, my X-Men.

Come to me. Welcome to die. Yeah, this wasn't just spiritual growth. This was, it was presented as a literal physical process to reach next level, to qualify for boarding the spacecraft. One had to quote unquote, overcome all aspects of human nature. This meant ruthlessly eliminating attachments to material possessions, earthly relinquency. earthly relationships, the family and friends, careers, and most emphatically, your ball.

All forms of sensuality. Both of your balls. And sexuality. Yeah, you had to get rid of both sensual and sexual. They taught that this rigorous overcoming process would trigger actual biological and chemical changes within the body, transforming the human vehicle or container with, air quotes, into a perfected, genderless, extraterrestrial form suited for life in space. The space caterpillar, shall we say.

No, no, don't do that. Goatid form. Achieving its space butterfly state. Don't do that to me. Capital G goaded form. Yeah, a space butterfly state. A crucial point in this early theology was the absolute necessity, by the way, of achieving this transformation wild.

alive in a physical body. Death was a failure. If you died before you could perfect, well, becoming your failure. You failed and all that would lead to was getting thrown back in the reincarnation cycle and being stuck going through another human life.

Okay, I see what they were going for. Yeah, you're trying to like be free. You're trying to break the wheel like police in seasons one through five of Game of Thrones. Yeah, almost the entire show until it's very late in the show. One of the early linchpins holding these ideas together in their early public message when they're trying to get people was the dramatic prophecy of the demonstration. This was rooted directly in their self-identification as the two witnesses of Revelation 11, where they proclaimed their mission would culminate in a shocking public spectacle.

They would preach their truth, be assassinated by earthly authorities, or other antagonists. Organistic forces representing the beast lie dead for exactly three and a half days, a detail that they emphasized and drew right out of Revelations 1111. And then miraculously, of course, resurrect their bodies healed and replaced by next level technology before visibly being levitated off the ground into a UFO waiting in the cloud. This was what they thought was going to happen, which is, it's wild because it's like pretty normal until they say and then we're going to wake up in new technological bodies and we'll be like technologically ascended. The purpose of this prophesized event, it was to be the

ultimate irrefutable proof, the demonstration, validating their divine authority, the reality of the next level, and the truth of their seemingly unbelievable claims about metamorphosis and UFOs. It was the dramatic climax that all cults need designed to shock the world into recognition that they were right all along. However, when they attempted to share this message during the initial travels in 1974, targeting churches and metaphysical groups both equally, they encountered mainly what do you expect

but rejection, skepticism, and a ton of ridicule. The predicted martyrdom did not occur, of course, yet the prophecy itself contained an inherent resilience. Crucially, in its early formulation, the demonstration prophecy, while specific in its sequence of events, death, resurrection, ascension, lacked a definite timeline.

One of the things that most cults get wrong. Most cults slap a timeline right at the beginning, which puts them on a clock. But if you are able to start a cult without defining a timeline, you can drag that fucker on as long as you want. And this ambiguity would be the key. The failure of the martyrdom to happen immediately didn't invalidate its cordial.

at all. It simply meant the timing wasn't right yet. It hadn't happened yet. It allowed Applewhite and Bonnie and any very, very early isolated followers that they were able to get to maintain their belief system while living in a state of constant high stakes anticipation, always ready for the prophesized climax to happen every day. It just keeps you on fucking edge and it keeps you hooked. The prophecy provided a very powerful narrative framework that was obviously, scripture mixed with theosophy and bestowing significance upon them without demanding immediate empirically verifiable fulfillment.

This flexibility stands, like I said, before, in stark contrast to later more specific prophecies that would happen because eventually you need to re-up the high on your followers and new prophecies need to happen. And these prophecies like the ones that would eventually be tied to the Halbop comet whose failure is forced more significant and complex theological adjustments, in its initial adaptable form, it served

potent, but these later ones would end up in a way being the destruction of Heaven's Gate in conjunction with what happens with Bonnie Nettles later as well. The period after Marshall Apple White's early release from jail in early 1975, just so you know, he served roughly six months out in Missouri for keeping a rental car well beyond its return date. That's like the most lame fucking reason to get thrown in jail. He just pretty funny.

It's funny. It's funny. It's funny. It's after this, because he had met Bonnie at this point. He had to go to jail for a little bit. And then when he came out, he reunited with Bonnie, who had worked as a nurse during his imprisonment and they resolved to find their crew

from this point on. The individuals that were destined to join, their their ride or die. Yeah. Yeah, you got to find your right and die. Yeah, ride and die. Correct. You got to ride and die. Eventually, you will die. Applewhite's time in prison isolation, as he termed it,

had apparently solidified his conviction that they were not merely human messengers, but actual extraterrestrials inhabiting human bodies, perhaps since birth as walkins, implying that the soul of the original human that was supposed to be there was pushed out and sent into the reinsicions. the reincarnation cycle again, I guess. Doesn't really elaborate on that. Their recruitment strategy, though,

would involve a blitz of public meetings across California and Oregon during 1975. They would advertise through flyers, sometimes hand-delivered, and potentially newspaper ads in some areas. And at these gatherings, they present themselves as emissaries from the next level,

inviting attendees to join an experiment, quote-unquote, in human evolution. The core message was demanding and unambiguous, prospective followers had to walk out the door of their current lives, abandon their careers, possessions, relationships, and all earthly attachments to prepare for boarding a literal spacecraft. A poster used for a meeting in Canada College in Redwood City, California, exemplifies their appeal. It said, quote, if you have ever entertained the idea that there may be a real physical level beyond the earth's confines, you will want to attend this.

meeting. Yeah. Yeah, you will want to attend this meeting. Their identities in the group's name remained really fluid during this phase still. Apple White nettles were the two or the UFO two. That's kind of just all they went by at this point. That's so lame. It's so, that's everything about this shit is so lame, bro. Applewhite is so fucking lame. He's just a lame dude. He let Mathis down, dude. Yeah, well, he's fun. He's funny lame. I'll give you that. And honestly, when you cut the balls off, you have my attention. Anybody willing to go that far for their delusions? You haven't bored me.

You're just weird. No, no, I'm out. They also ended up getting a lot of nicknames that they adopted. They like adopted nicknames for themselves. First was a baffling one. Bonnie was known as Guinea and Marshall.

Applewhite was known as Pig. That was their Guinea and Pig. Guinea and Pig? Yeah, yeah. And then there was like a more, I don't know, it was a fairy tag.

ask. I don't know, like, Applewhite would be... Fairtale-esque. I don't know what you call this, but Applewhite would be called Bo, and Bonnie would be called Peep. Bo Peep. Together, they're Bo Peep. Okay. A little Bo Peep.

Okay. Yeah, I got it. Yeah, yeah. These kinds of nicknames eventually evolved into the more familiar what Nettles would be called T, T, T, I, representing the higher octave or tuning in. And Doe for Applewhite, which was the music.

note, the group itself was often just the group or sometimes guinea pig, reflecting the leader's initials nickname. Sometimes the group just called themselves the guinea pigs or the group before eventually formalizing for a bit on what I said earlier, human individual metamorphosis, him. And later names like Total Overcomers Anonymous, which is just the worst fucking name in the world, bro. Total overcomers anonymous. Dude.

Eventually, though, they. they finally would settle on what we all know, Heaven's Gate. That was finally adopted, but hilariously, it was only adopted near the very end of their journey. They just didn't really have a solid name. Now, the first follower was a woman by the name of Sharon Morgan, and she had joined and then left back in 1974 after only four months. Her departure and kind of subsequent actions by her husband led to the charges, led to the charges against the two. that you try to bring them to court. But this is where momentum kind of began.

A crucial meeting occurred in April 9th, and I say crucial because this is really where they get their first real person. In Studio City, Los Angeles, hosted at the home of psychic Joan Culpepper and the audience of roughly 40 to 80 people largely consisted of members from another metaphysical group led by Clarence Clug, which focused on self-initiation.

I love that name, by the way. Clarence Clarence. Clarence? Clarence? Clarence Clug. His little group focused on alchemy and interpretations of revelation, of course, and Klug's group, already familiar

with concepts of transcendence, bodily transformation, even incorporating tantric practices for some, and allegorical readings of scripture, he was reportedly experiencing internal turmoil and a decline in his own membership of his group, his own little cult,

making them particularly receptive to, again, I say charismatic with quotes, the charismatic message of Bo and Pete, baby. Even Culpepper, later critic acknowledged their initial power describing their aura of love and understanding and Applewhite's

hypnotic eyes. Yeah, those eyes? They are fucking weird. I can't tell if there's emptiness behind them or not, but they are interesting. Every night for you.

This kind of like preying on a dying cult which is something that Jones Town leader did, by the way. Well, I'm going to, I can't wait to do Jonestown one day, but he did the same thing. He kind of preyed on dying groups of people, like groups of cults. The result was significant. Between 23 and 27 individuals, including most of Clug's remaining followers, committed to join their nascent movement, man. They just really like, all right, clug, well, your prophecies didn't work out.

So maybe this guy's will. and just goes right over to fucking to Applewhite and Nettles. And later that year, the recruitment focus shifted north. The Waldport, Oregon meeting, the Waldport Oregon meeting on September 14th, 1975,

held at the Waldport Inn under the provocative banner, UFOs, why they are here, who they have come for, when will they leave? Drew a crowd of about 150 to 250 people, and the two of them presented their message, blending vaguely biblical themes with explicit claims about extraterrestrial

origins, including for figures like Jesus, Ezekiel and Elijah, and the promising of leaving Earth on a UFO for a better life on another planet and completing their training. Some attendees interpreted this as the second coming. The impact was again dramatic. In the days following another estimated 20 to 33-ish local residents abruptly abandoned their lives, jobs, homes, families, possessions, and disappeared to

follow the two. This mass departure caused a local media frenzy for a bit and brought the group some national attention, including a segment on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite himself. It was this like, he just like walked into this place and just scooped up

20 to 30 people. And then similar meetings were held across the San Francisco Bay Area shortly after, including gatherings at Canada College and in Tilden Park, Berkeley. Who were these individuals that were willing to take a leap? The profile painted by early reports for most of these people and sociological studies is pretty consistent. They were predominantly young, though with exceptions, of course, like John Craig, who was a successful middle-aged businessman and former political candidate who joined them. But most of them were often single and overwhelmingly characterized as quote long time seekers of truth many came from middle class backgrounds and included students meditators former hippies individuals that have just

immersed themselves in the cultic world or subscribed to new age culture to me everybody here just didn't feel like they belonged in the world that they were in they wanted kind of the template right like vulnerable people looking for a place that they can find answers, as we, as kind of you guys said earlier. They weren't really like social outcast, per se, but rather people that were just searching for meaning and purpose or community outside of what conventional society had offered. Many were veteran seekers, having previous explored various spiritual paths like

Scientology, Yoga, Zen, and other offbeat cults like Clugs. They've tried, others people talk about how they tried hallucinogens, tarot, astrology. For this specific demographic, Nettles and, Applewhite, their message, however strange it is to us, resonated, and it clicked, felt logical, offered a compelling answer to their quest, and joining, joining demanded immense sacrifice, severing ties, like I said with everything. To them, that meant they were serious. This had to be a test to show that they really truly were ready to ascend. The recruitment method itself acted as a powerful selection mechanism, too. The process was deliberately accelerated, an intense but brief public meeting, a follow-up session for the truly interested, like they do one, get a bunch of people, then weed all the people who were not really interested and do another one,

and then an immediate high-stakes decision. Potential recruits had only a few days to completely dismantle their former lives and catch up with the group, which was already getting ready to move on. Like, if you want to be with us, we leave in three days. And if you want to be with us,

you have to let go of everything. If you don't, best of luck to you in the next cycle. We're moving on. Um, and this gives you, it gives you the Fafo like, like, uh, like, don't want enough Fafel. That's not going to find out. What is like the first, you don't want to miss something. FOMO. That's where.

Yeah. Fear of missing out. Yeah. Fear of missing out. So you're telling me that that basically they hit them with like, look, guys, you could kill yourself for now and join us on the next level. Yeah. Or miss out and wait till next time.

In which case, that's going to be a while for you. So you might want to get on board now. So essentially That wasn't it yet Because remember at this point Their cult was your bodies are going to evolve And you're going to become a sexless alien creature And leave I'm already out

Physical body Yeah well yeah That's why that other dude left was like I like my penis no Sexless alien creature No no I'm fine being Look guys I don't have been dealing with being sexless

human creature am I right Hey And then you leave Yeah I imagine it went like this Meeting one where a bunch of people came they gave the hits. They're like, aliens. Jesus is an alien.

Heaven's real. We can leave. Then the second one, when they got the people who were interested, it's like, look, what we said is true, but it's going to require

a ton of sacrifice, an evolution, a severance of your desires, and it's going to be very hard, but the end will be worth it. Like, they didn't give them the hard pitch until they got the people

that were into the last meeting. Man, it's like, listen to the news these days. That's crazy. I know, wild. But once the, you know,

after this provided, this structure precluded gradual integration or the formation of strong social bonds before making the commitment. Instead, it's selected for individuals with a high degree of pre-existing motivation, people who are already ready for radical change and a willingness to act right now based on the immediate perceived truth or what they believe to be the plausibility at the very least of their message, which to them filtered out everybody other than true believers. And to some degree,

I can see the the very broken thought behind that, but the reason that true believers is because they're very vulnerable and making an impulsive decision

like that is very hard to go back and fucking undo. So you kind of essentially trap yourself in a weird way. Once the initial groups of followers

had committed, Heaven's Gate embarked on a period of intense nomadic existence that defined its first couple of years.

Roughly between mid, like the mid-1917 through 1976, the crew, as they called themselves, because they weren't really Heaven's Gate yet, as they began to see this. Yeah, I know. It's like a big, the gang.

The gang, yeah, the homies. The crew, the homies, the bros. These guys traveled extensively, primarily across the Western and Midwestern U.S. Their lifestyle was very Spartan, often involving camping in remote natural settings, along rivers in Oregon and national forest in Wyoming, near reservoirs in Colorado.

They sometimes even found temporary lodging in the homes of sympathizers or on farms, but movement was constant and often just unpredictable, reinforcing their isolation from mainstream society. Financial resources were extremely limited, especially early on. Members lived near poverty, sometimes donating blood for cash or taking temporary, low-paying jobs like clerking or being a server to fund their travels. They relied heavily on donations,

eventually by pooling the resources members brought upon joining, having giving up all their other personal assets. They acquired several campers, making their wandering slight less precarious. Here's the other part that I don't really, I don't think I made very clear. They didn't give up their money and give it to Marshall. They left it all behind.

They didn't like, they had some belongings and some stuff, but it wasn't like here, my cult leader, take all my money. No, they were scrambling. They were all living.

They were just bad at culting. I see. Yeah, he was just bad at culting. Yeah, he should come to me first. I would have been like, my man, you got to get the,

the money, then you get the women, then you get the power. That's what's about. He wouldn't have done it. And life within the group quickly evolved into this highly structured a regimen aimed squarely at facilitating what was known as

the overcoming process. The shedding of all human attachments and characteristics. The core rules were demanding. Relinquish your material possessions, like I said, no family, all that stuff, quit jobs. Worldly distractions were strictly forbidden. That means even while they were traveling, no popular music, no reading materials besides approved texts, which were primarily just the Bible initially, and no following the news, no recreational drugs, no alcohol, no tobacco, even reminiscing or talking about one's past was discouraged, though not against the rules.

Daily life soon followed meticulous schedules, which is key to any cult. later, this would solidify into the adoption of uniforming, of uniform androgynous clothing to further minimize individuality and gender distinction. That's what they did in middle school. Yes, yes. I find this interesting too, because a lot of cults do this metaphorically. They remove people's individuality by yes, severing them,

but they keep them on really high work schedules. Jonestown, for instance, constantly had their leader blaring his, his things over megaphones 24-7 while they slept or not. The point is to make you think like the cult leader, to be like him, but rarely do they make them wear and like physically outwardly express this uniformity. But here, it was part of it, the androgynous clothing and all that stuff.

Right. Essential and maybe even most challenging for most of these people, though, was the absolute prohibition of all sexual activity, including masturbation. What's the point of joining a cult? If it can't be wild sex cult. It's because those are the fake cults. This is a real cult that's going to go to space.

That's stupid. That's not a real cult. That's a dumb call. In space, dude. In space, no one can hurt you cream. Yeah. Fucking I hate you, dude. You're welcome, dude.

You got to keep quick. You got to keep it quick if you want to be funny like me. You know what I mean? You got to always swing for the fences like Babe Ruth. Go for all the easy ones. Well, there ain't any creaming in space. You're in an androgynous alien body. this rule deeply rooted in Applewhite's personal struggles very clearly was enforced through the check partner system which is a lot like the speaker of the houses and his sons let's check what porn we watch system that's real fun uh what is the name of that app did they use i can't remember but i don't want to know speaker mike johnson jesus watch jesus is watching

check it they don't jerk it tabs on each other's fucking porn very normal i don't want to know i want to do you don't want to know if your son's watching porn and being a naughty boy first of all i don't want to know that i have a son Second of all, don't tell me that he just sits around all day watching porn. Well, not if you're keeping tabs on his porn watching habits and texting him like a good father should. You're right. Well, first off. What? Second off. Oh, you didn't know this, Jesse?

No, I'm aware. Okay. It's just a lot of weird people. And I just. Yeah. If we can't lead a cult, join politics. It's basically a cult. Yeah.

Yeah, it really is. This was a, so yeah, he had me, he enforced this non-sexuality versus with the Czech partner system. Members in this system were paired up, often heterosexual, but deliberately mismatched to minimize attraction. Like trying to put people who they don't think have chemistry together. Or sometimes same sex if the individual was gay to force confrontation of those desires. He genuinely thought that the Czech partner system would work best if you put people who sometimes are attracted to each other to force the individuals to confront their desires so they can overcome them.

Right. That's what would happen. All right. Well, that doesn't happen for you. If you walked in and say, you know, your girlfriend or whatever is lying in the bed

and she's naked and like, come fuck me. You don't think you could stop yourself, but like, I don't need human temptations anymore. Am I in a cult? Is it just like Thursday? Yeah.

I would, I would have, I'd be like, hold on. I guess if you're in a cult. What is this? You yourself are in a cult. And it's check night.

It's check partner night. You go, home and as you walk in the person they hip paired you up with somebody you have pretty good chemistry within this cult and is very attractive is like hey baby she's like in lingerie and uh now do i buy into this cult or am i like the guy who's like nah i'm keeping my balls i was gonna say it's you in the cult i don't know why you got into the cult i'm just saying like if i buy in this happen jesse you buy in at this point but this happens to you she's a redhead too and oh f the cult then okay yeah no matter how much you believe no i don't believe no i don't believe

that much. How could you have let this happen, man? I'll take the call down from the inside. You kidding me? I'll go to the police. I'll be like, I love her, officer. I love her so much. Get my baby out of there. Get my baby out of there.

You failed the check system, Jesse. Oh, damn. Oh, no. When you get paired up with somebody, you were expected to monitor each other constantly, reporting infractions and creating a catalytic conflict. designed to expose and overcome human weakness like attraction, irritation, and frustration.

Like attraction. Yeah, that's one of the few in this. One of the many human weaknesses. So many. One of the many human weaknesses, exactly. Uh-huh. Partners were rotated frequently to prevent deep emotional bonds from forming because maybe they'd go off and play.

Communication was also managed with periods of enforced silence known as tomb time. Tomb time? Yeah, that's too weird. as in like hanging out in the tomb like a little tomb time yeah a little tomb time I don't love that I don't love it

I gotta be honest they don't love that no that sounds great it was implemented to quiet human chat Tim the tomb man Taylor I don't think so Tim I don't think so Tim

welcome back tomb I would say I don't think so too I would say I don't think so too or from Jackie Wells I'd say hey tombah that's a great game Tomba It basically was, again, quiet human chatter.

Tomb time was to shut up everybody up. Oh, that's so fine. And to have them focus, to be able to have them in a, be able to focus better, essentially. Now, how do you, what kind of tomb do we have today? I don't think so, tomb. That's what you get to say. Okay.

The combination of constant mobility, geographic isolation, and these intensely demanding rules created totalistic, totalist totalistic. It was like its own culture separate from everything else. Completely. It just cut members off not only from their external support systems, but it prevented them from developing support systems within the cult itself. You weren't allowed to get close to anybody. So you're just isolated anyway. That's how they work. So you can't all realize together. Wait, this is stupid. This formative period for the cult was completely filled with like internal and external

pressures. The leaders faced legal issues stemming from their earlier activities. Financial hardship was a constant concern. The mysterious disappearances, particularly in Oregon, Oregon generated negative media attention and public suspicion. And occasionally, distraught family members would track the group down leading difficult confrontations. Nobody got killed. People just left the fucking cult. And sometimes people quietly left town and didn't tell anybody and join the cult, which is why people had those towns. They would just be like, they'd come in, do their schick, and then people wouldn't even tell their family and would just vanish. And maybe perhaps partly reacting to this external pressure and potentially feeling that they had recruited a sufficient core group at this point over these couple years.

Though membership numbers fluctuated pretty heavily and estimates vary depending on the source, Bonnie Nettles made a pivotal announcement in the spring of 1976 around April 21st. Quote, the harvest is closed. There will be no more meetings. The harvest is closed. Yep. This declaration marked the end of the crew, their initial phase of active public proselytizing and gathering new initiates.

And now from this point, the group turned decisively inward. Yeah, and then they all had to migrate from the crew servers over to the crew two servers, because Ubisoft said you don't actually own. own games. You're on the crew. Yeah. Exactly. Correct. Same thing.

The focus shifted entirely into the intensive processing and indoctrination of its now existing members. The classroom phase began in earnest. And later that summer, the two gathered the remaining flock, which was around 85 to 90 individuals who answered the call. And in the remote isolated medicine bow National Forest in Wyoming, There, they instituted a far more centralized and rigid structure yet again. No longer just messengers, tea and dough, or, you know, Apple, White and Nettles, asserted absolute authority.

Bibi and B, B, B, B, B, B, B, B, B, B, B, uh, B, uh, B B B, uh, B B B, uh, B B B, uh, B B B, uh, B B B B, uh, B B B B, uh, they asserted absolute authority over all aspects of the members' Lives, becoming the sole source of teaching and direction. The decentralized family units were dissolved in favor of a single hierarchical community akin to a roving monastery of sorts. This reflected the new emphasis on conformity and obedience. They expelled 19 members later that year who were deemed insufficiently committed, unwilling to follow the stricter rules or disrespectful of the leaders' authorities,

which in turn kind of created a deeper fervor for the people who were still in there. Because now not only were the gates closed, but fuck, they're serious. They're willing to throw people out, which usually doesn't happen in a cult. Most of the time they go through extreme edgers to keep people in. Yeah. This, they were like, you're out. Goodbye. You're done.

This organizational kind of consolidation proved very effective, at least initially. The high rate of defection slow. after the initial purge, and the boundary between the group and the outside world became sharply defined reinforcing their sectarian identity at this point. Even when financial necessity, later force members temporarily back into outside jobs because they just needed money, the group's cohesion still largely held, cemented by their shared commitment and the intensified internal focus. human individual metamorphosis had weathered its chaotic and like kind of early phase and transformed now into a more disciplined, centralized, and isolated, much more religious movement, I would say. And it's essential for me to just say it again and reiterate how demanding these rules were perceived internally.

They weren't simply endured. They were embraced as necessary disciplines, the essential spiritual, technology for achieving the promised physical metamorphosis into the sexless being, denying every facet of humanness from sexuality and even enjoying food. You are no longer, like this is how intense it starts to get. You are no longer allowed to enjoy food, personal possessions, no joy at all. That was the work. It was the difficult but necessary labor requirement to overcome humanness and prepare for

the UFO for its ultimate transformation. It's insane. And I just have to frame this extreme deprivation as the direct path to salvation. The leaders made the lifestyle meaningful, even desirable, because the punishments now were part of the religion to ascend. Most of the time in cults, punishments are for stepping out and to bring you back into line. Here, the punishments, it's if you don't punish yourself, you get kicked out. The punishments are the cult. So even further in like very nefariously ingrained this very unique psychology into these cult members that a lot of other cults didn't have.

And to truly grasp why a movement like Heaven's Gate could gain traction, attracting dozens, then hundreds of seemingly ordinary people to abandon their lives for this crazy world is again, the swirling culture of 70s America. It helped clear out the disillusion. People just wanted to fucking go. Yeah, that's it. It's like that dude who went to Alaska. Yeah.

And like lost all his shit out there. Oh, wait, wait. I don't know what you're talking about. They made a movie about him. It was like he just like left society behind and like, went out into a van and then he like died because he didn't know how to live out there. But messed up. Pretty cool story.

Yeah, I'll have to go look it up. I don't know anything about it. So it sounds wild. The most distinctive element of the, this, This cult, though, was the UFO zeitgeist of the 70s that they were tapping into, this widespread public fascination and obsession with UFOs, sparked obviously by the post-World War II sightings, like Kenneth Arnold's flying saucers in 1947, the Roswell crash that we've covered extensively, belief in E.T's visiting was very mainstream.

Even Gallup polls that I dug up showed a majority of Americans believed UFOs were a real phenomena back then. This interest was sustained by ongoing citing reports. I think they still kind of do, man. Yeah, I wonder if the majority. I wonder if the majority do believe still. Yeah, you might be right. It might be the majority. I feel like they do.

Yeah. This interest was sustained by, like I said, ongoing citing reports, often ambiguous official investigations like the Air Force's Project Blue Book, concluded in 1969, but left many unconvinced thanks to Jay Allen Hineck afterward, in a growing subculture dedicated to collecting account,

speculating about origins and alleging government cover-ups. The idea of a cosmic water gate that authorities were hiding the truth about alien contact in Heaven's gate was the answer, gained currency for them. And of course, legends surrounding Area 51 Nevada

began to percolate too at this point. This cultural preoccupation provided the perfect farming ground for the emergence of UFO religions and contact team movements. Group like Jordan Adamski's followers, the Aetherius society and Unarius Academy of Science claimed direct communication with benevolent spiritually advanced

brothers, often delivering messages of cosmic wisdom, warning about nuclear war, promisings of future salvation via spacecraft, the humans were the center of all and the most important things in the whole wide universe. These groups frequently took UFO beliefs with elements of theosophy or spiritualism and binded them together, positioning the aliens as akin to the ascended masters of Madam Blavatsky or angels. The development of ancient astronaut theory, which was popularized by Eric von Dynikins' bestseller Chariots of the Gods in 1960s. Isn't it, Donigate?

Maybe. Years of listening to Coast Coast A.m. at an overnight job. I'm almost sure. You pronounce that for you. I think that is. Yeah, it might be. Dinegitt? Yeah, Eric von Dondaget, I believe is what they would, is what.

Donagin? Donican? I think that at least that's what George Norie, I think you used to say. Yeah. His bestseller, The Chariots of the Gods from 1968, provided another layer that kind of suggested aliens had visited Earth and antiquity and were responsible for myths, religions, megalithic structures, and ancient aliens, the TV show, baby. We finally did this. We got it because of him. I love that show. It's fun. This theory offered a, like, for reading, ancient texts, including the Bible, allowed them to take these as records of extraterrestrial encounters and merge them into the Heavens Gate beliefs. Heavens Gate core narrative, benevolent, highly evolved aliens from the next level, arriving in a spacecraft to offer

physical ascension to a select few prepared to leave the corrupt Earth behind fit perfectly within this already existing cultural and religious niche that had bubbled up. They quite skillfully, if I may add, leverage the purpose. public's fascination to use it as their hook. Again, they called themselves the UFO cult. And the convergence of all these factors, the widespread spiritual seeking and openness to alternative beliefs fostered by the New Age movement, the lingering countercultural rejection, UFOs, and so on and so on, created the unique perfect storm, as we said,

right at the beginning, that created Heaven's Gate and allowed it to take root. Applewhite and Nettles' message resonated precisely because it's spoke to all of these currents simultaneously. It offered a radical path of rejection, transformation, and transcendence, all framed within the culturally familiar and authoritative language of Christian revelation. Their initial success wasn't just due to charisma or doctrine alone, but to me, the kind of incredible congruence between their specific ideological brew and the, the specific anxieties,

aspirations, and available narratives in 1970s America. For a particular segment of the population, and again, it speaks to how small the cult was, that was already searching for something radically different. The two of them offered a story that seemed, however bizarrely,

to make sense of everything. Wow. Man, that is fucking crazy, dude. Yeah. This is we end here. We got one little bit left, and then we'll wrap it up, but I know it's a bit of a longer one. At the heart of, with Marshall and Bonnie at the heart, their intense platonic bond, which

was forged in that mythical origin point of mutual crisis, became the engine for the cult's movement moving on from here. Applewhite provided the captivating stage presence. He even included his own musical talent, repurposed it to tell musical, his own prophecies via song to the cult. Kind of sick. Kind of cool. It's kind of cool.

And a framework derived from his Presbyterian upbringing, which helped him kind of like bring a sense of doom and immediacy to all of his messages.

Nettles contributed the vital esoteric content drawn from her deep dive into Madame Bovotsky's theosophy, astrology, and all that other stuff, the lens through which

Applewhite's apparent psychological breakdown could be reframed, like I said, as this divine communication that all these people in the cult now believed. and the radical message found residents

within the specific cultural climate and with these targets now fully on board Nettles declared and with Nettles having declared the harvest closed the real difficulties became harvest is closed because starting in part two or in part two as we move on to end this

we'll talk about the event that happened to Bonnie Nettles that would send this already off the walls cult into one that would be willing to take their very own lives after castrating themselves as well. And why you probably don't know Bonnie Nettles until today. And that's what we'll pick up next week for Heaven's Gate, Park 2. Oh, boy. Fucking hell, dude.

Thank you guys so much for listening. Love that. Yeah, Heaven's Gate's super fun. It's so 70s flavored. It is, it is. And at the end with it's like, it is very 90s flavored the way it all ends. it's interesting how it does kind of move and morph with the decade. We're kind of examining it in at the time.

Wild style. Yeah. So we'll, we're off to go to patreon.com slash julmini pod. We got to go do a minisone for you all. Thank you all too much for your support. Do you again, head over to the Yeti.com slash illuminati.

Go check that out. Also, personal plug, head over to twitch. com. Uh, after six months. Oh.

Our second campaign after our five year campaign, taking six months off in between is going to be. beginning on Saturday around 2 p.m. The pod, Mark Meir. No, Mark Mear, not on this one. This is a friend of the pod, Bub dot Tracy, and a few others. Friend of the pod, Bub dot Tracy, and a few others. And a bunch of others.

Anyway, that's it for us. Thank you guys so much again. We appreciate you. We love you. Goodbye. La Bonanza. Anyway, me and my wife were sitting outside indulging on our porch one night enjoying ourselves.

I needed to go to the bathroom, so I stepped back inside. And after a few moments, I hear my wife go. Holy shit, get out here. So I quickly dash back outside. She's looking up the sky and the hall. I look up too, and there's a perfect line of dozen lights traveling across the sky.