Which member aside from Ti and Do would you say you missed most? Are there certain characteristic traits about different members that you can give us? Aside from the exit interviews and People article "Who They Were" - we really don't know much about the members who left. So when we continued to hold meetings to include in Sante Fe, NM in early October of 1975 and then at Prescott, AZ, the groups were very well organized with a group coordinator assigned by TI and DO and a system of leaving and retrieving messages through Holiday Inn’s, that largely consisted of leaving a pay phone number and time and day to be at a pay phone that could receive calls for the group coordinators to get instructions and reports about each of the 5 or so groups in circulation then. It was an exquisit communication system and would work for the next 8 months while the group grew and shrunk holding meetings all over the U.S. until TI and DO called it quits and instructed the groups to finish what they had already set up. The group I had been reassigned to did our last meeting in Fayatteville, AR around June of 1976, which by the way was, depending on how one counts the start date very close if not exactly the 1260 days of Prophecy by the Two Witnesses in Revelation 11. Niether TI nor DO would ever give another public meeting after that. In 1994 all the meetings were completely done with student speakers, which included me. Mizrach, Steven. "The Facts about Heaven's Gate". Archived from the original on 2008-05-17 . Retrieved 2008-10-10. Heaven's Gate left mounds of old tires and a few friends in New Mexico". AP NEWS . Retrieved 2021-05-02. Dr. Zeller, Most discussions of the group understandably end with their mass suicide in 1997. However, not only are there ex-members that retained the group’s belief system left behind, but also recent adoptees that were never a part of the group. What are your thoughts on the future of the belief system (especially in light of the recent legal battle between the TELAH foundation and other believers), and what can this phenomena say about the propagation and evolution of religious movements after the death of it’s first adherents more broadly?

Although no matter the seriousness of its analysis, this non-fiction effort can’t fully change the fact that—courtesy of its own philosophy and behavior—Heaven’s Gate ultimately earned whatever ridicule and condemnation it received. How did an eccentric, extraterrestrial-centered belief lead 39 people to die willingly? Why do its surviving members keep the faith after watching their brethren die by their own hands? This season, “ Deadly Cults” on Oxygen, will take viewers inside Heaven’s Gate to find answers to these questions. Over the last 6 or so months I've done some digging around the cult. I spoke with Sawyer (ex-member) who answered some questions that I feel weren't covered in the podcast or YouTube videos. Feel free to share some of your own research. I'm just genuinely curious to learn as much as I can about HG. Heaven's Gate was the subject of the 10-part podcast of the same name produced by Glynn Washington to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the mass suicide. [98] [99] They have also been the subject of numerous other podcasts.The name "Heaven's Gate" was only used for the final few years of the group's existence, and they had previously been known under the names Human Individual Metamorphosis and Total Overcomers Anonymous. Weise, Elizabeth (1997-03-28). "Internet Provided Way To Pay Bills, Spread Message Before Suicide". Seattle Times. Associated Press . Retrieved 2007-12-30. Lifton, Robert Jay (2000). Destroying the World to Save it: Aum Shinrikyō, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism. Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 978-0-8050-6511-4. Lewis, James R., ed. (2001). Odd Gods: New Religions & the Cult Controversy. Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-57392-842-9. Hi Dr Zeller. If the Heavens gate cult did not die from mass suicide in 1997, do you belive it would still be around today? And if so, what changes could you forsee them introducing to survive in the modern world?

Lattanzio, Ryan (2020-12-03). " 'Heaven's Gate' Review: HBO Max Doc Reveals Bonkers UFO Cult as More Than Just a Pop-Culture Joke". IndieWire . Retrieved 2021-05-03. So what happened to people who joined in 1975-1976 from a meeting that TI and DO didn’t speak at. Well I don’t know exactly as I was not a group coordinator. However I was camping on Mt. Diablo in California with the group TI and DO assigned me to be with in early November of 1975 and there were some new potential students there and I don’t know if TI and DO ever showed up there because after a handful of days camping there after the Berkley meeting that Jwnody spoke at I chose on my own to travel to the east coast. Jnnody was at that campground as well with the group she had been assigned group coordinator of. However, before I left for the Boston area where I met others in my group and some of the new potential students who had also traveled there, I spent a number of nights around a campfire with potential new students asking me and others that had been with TI and DO questions. And among them were certain ones who were agitated, some who were strictly curiosity seekers or new agers who wanted to catch a ride on a UFO which a true seeker wouldn’t have cared about, knowing that the UFO was at best transportation. If one was going to college would they make a big deal about the bus they were going to take to college. That may seem absurd but the fact is, this was just that real to me and others. Any that didn’t want to tow the very difficult line of outgrowing any desire to remain in the human condition soon dropped out of even minimal studentship. I have direct experience with two that may have been in that category, one of which was a troublemaker who was in Boston giving Jnnody and myself and others who were taking the brunt of the responsabilities for holding the Worchester, MA meeting trouble. He didn’t like any of the agreements we were making on how to poster the Boston area. At one point I got angry at him and told him to leave if wasn’t going to add to our efforts instead of competing with us. The name he used at the time was Lightborn and I don’t know what became of him but he remained difficult for the entire time I was with him in the group we had become that was not in touch with TI and DO, though I suspect Jnnody was. So sure, for some it was disorganized and confusing but hey, that’s the human kingdom and especially in the start of this group, we were bombarded by negativity galore and that continues to today. Zeller, Benjamin E. (2014a). Heaven's Gate: America's UFO Religion. NYU Press. ISBN 978-1-4798-0381-1. Reimann, Matt (October 14, 2016). "Suicide, Nikes, and comet space ships: the story of the Heaven's Gate cult". Timeline . Retrieved June 3, 2019. 15 people on March 24, another 15 on March 25, and the final nine on March 26In 2021, Heaven's Gate was one of the subjects in the first season of Vice Media's documentary television series Dark Side of the 90's entitled "A Tale of Two Cults". [97] Goerman, Patricia (2011). "Heaven's Gate: The Dawning of a New Religious Movement". In George D. Chryssides (ed.). Heaven's Gate: Postmodernity and Popular Culture in a Suicide Group. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7546-6374-4. Feinberg, Ashley (17 September 2014). "The Online Legacy of a Suicide Cult and the Webmasters Who Stayed Behind". Gizmodo.com. The cult’s members were assigned new names. They all wore the same haircuts, the same clothes. Sex was forbidden, and eight male members, including Applewhite himself, were voluntarily castrated, according to Rolling Stone.