Countdown to Armageddon

Heaven's Gate was a UFO cult the members of which committed mass suicide in 1997. They believed that their souls would be beamed up by a UFO following the Hale-Bopp comet. The cult suicide is sometimes blamed on the Art Bell Show, but in reality this particular group had toyed with bizarre ideas of a suicidal nature during its entire existence.

This sensational book, "UFO Missionaries Extraordinary" was published already in 1976, and deals with the beliefs of the cult, then known as Human Individual Metamorphosis (HIM). The book is written by Brad Steiger and Hayden Hewes, but the main item is a long interview (or what looks like an interview) with the cult leaders, Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles, also known as Bo and Peep (sic) or The Two. The first part of the book details the extensive media coverage around HIM, and reveals one interesting detail: many people feared that the cult might commit mass suicide already in 1975-76, and this was several years before the Jonestown tragedy. Otherwise, it's all a pretty classic story about brainwashed youth, people leaving their families or children behind to join a cult, and even expelled ex-members who still seem to support the cult's ideas.

Applewhite and Nettles eventually agreed to meet with Steiger in person, but it's not clear whether the latter conducted an actual interview with them, or whether he was simply lectured to for a couple of hours. Be that as it may, Bo and Peep's lecture has been edited to look more like a genuine interview. The ideas of HIM or Heaven's Gate turn out to be a blend of Theosophy and Biblical Christianity, but with many disturbing and bizarre additions. (It seems both Applewhite and Nettles were Theosophists for a while, before creating their own group.)

The goal of HIM is to reach "the next evolutionary kingdom above the human". This is connected to a Theosophical perspective, in which immortal souls evolve from lower to higher kingdoms, eventually becoming a kind of gods with the ability to create or co-create their own planets. The chance to "graduate" to the kingdom above the human only comes once every 2000 years. The true believers will be beamed onboard a physical, alien space ship or UFO and taken to a location "outside the Earth's atmosphere" (presumably another planet). However, the gate to salvation is extremely narrow and open only to those who *completely* reject the world. They have to leave their families, homes and jobs behind, give away all their possessions (preferably to the cult), be strictly celibate, adopt new names and never talk about their past, etc. All classical cult stuff. HIM lived a quasi-nomadic lifestyle, the members held odd jobs, asked restaurants and churches for food or clothes, and preferred camping in the wilderness.

In contrast to most other Theosophically-inspired groups, HIM's message was to a large extent based on a radical re-interpretation of Christianity. The astral worlds are seen as negative and illusory. Real salvation is physical, a kind of "resurrection of the body". The believers will get new, incorruptible, heavenly bodies shortly before being beamed up to the UFO (note the similarity with the Rapture). Adam, Enoch and Moses are seen as real historical characters. They seem to have been human. By contrast, Jesus was an alien from another world who was killed by the earthly unbelievers but was physically resurrected as a demonstration of the power of the next evolutionary kingdom. The Father is presumably another highly evolved alien. So is Satan, who is a literal, real being. Satan fell through pride, was banished to Earth and is used by the Father to test fallen man. Literally everything that stop people from joining HIM is Satanic and therefore evil - a paranoid message typical of cults.

The most bizarre aspect of "the process" (HIM's name for its attempts to "evolve" to "the next level") is an event known as "the demonstration", loosely based on the Book of Revelation, where two witnesses to Christ are brutally killed, their bodies lying in the street for three days, after which they are mysteriously brought back to life again. Applewhite and Nettles claimed that this passage referred to themselves, and that *they* would be assassinated and resurrected in some major U.S. city, as a sign that the end of days is imminent. This craving for "martyrdom" is obviously suicidal. It's also interesting to read Steiger's interview with a former follower of HIM, who certainly sounds suicidal with a strong longing to "go home" (Chapter Three). The mass suicide of Heaven's Gate two decades later was a logical culmination of the group's founding ideas. Note, however, that the group eventually decided to only save their souls, leaving their bodies behind - the original message postulated a bodily ascension to the alien craft.

While "UFO Missionaries Extraordinary" is interesting, the book's sensationalism is somewhat annoying. Bo and Peep apparently claimed to be incarnated aliens, and this is put to good use by the authors, who imply that The Two had a mysterious ability to appear and disappear, that they could be summoned by a secret mental codeword, etc. Hewes tried to get their fingerprints during an interview by serving them ice tea, in the hope that their prints would be visible on the cups! It's not clear why, but Hewes implies that this was somehow connected to The Two's claims of being aliens! Further, The Two contacted a number of seemingly respectable citizens (including college professors), explaining their weird message to these individuals. One of the victims of the cultic pitch remarked that The Two had hypnotic eyes... Sounds scary and mysterious, does it not? No, not really since Applewhite was a former college teacher in Texas, who presumably talked to everyone in his social circles who were interested in "metaphysics". (Bo and Peep didn't isolate themselves until later.)

That being said, "UFO Missionaries Extraordinary" is nevertheless extraordinary almost-first hand material about one of the most extreme cults spawned in the United States in recent times. For a more "scholarly" treatment of this group, see Robert Balch's article "Waiting for the ships" in the collection "The Gods Have Landed", reviewed by me elsewhere here on Amazon.