Ti and Do. It sounds like the song from The Sound of Music, doesn't it? Do-Re-MI? Oddly, that is where the founder of Heaven's Gate and her cohort came up with the names that they called themselves. Bonnie Nettles and Marshall Applewhite were their real names. How did Heaven's Gate form? What was it about? How did their tragic ending come to be?
In 1975, TI and Do mysteriously appear in Waldorf, OR claiming that they were from out of space and distributed flyers all around town. They stated they were from space and that if you came with them and followed with them, you would be able to get on a spaceship or UFO and go to Heaven. They claimed that the world was ending, and this was the only way to get to Heaven. TI and Do (also called "The Two and Bo and Peep) got their first follower, Sharon Morgan, in May 1974, abandoning her children to join them. A month later Sharon left "The Two" and returned to her family. Nettles and Applewhite were arrested and charged with credit card fraud for using Morgan's cards, despite the fact that she had consented to their use. The charges were later dropped. However, a routine check brought up that Applewhite had stolen a rental car from St. Louis nine months earlier, which he still possessed. Applewhite then spent six months in jail primarily in Missouri, and was released in early 1975, subsequently rejoining Nettles.
TI and Do were both fans of musicals. The musical theater. That is how they met. Bonnie Nettles (TI) was a psychiatric nurse and took care of DO while he was on her ward after a psychotic episode breakdown he had was having. Kinda seems like Joker and Harley Quinn does it not? A psychotic love story, however, TI and DO never were intimate, married, or in an intimate relationship of any kind. Many people that have researched this cult, have found that Bonnie (TI) was the real starter of the group and her very first follower was Do. Bonnie's daughter talks about how her mother was always interested in space and the unknown after seeing a random light in the sky. In 1972, TI and Do went on the road and made money by doing small jobs trying to live. One day in July 1973, they came to the realization that they are the two witness who are foretold in the book of Revolutions. They were to be martyrs and they would die and rise again. They also believed that anyone who followed them would go back to Heaven with them on a cloud. That is when they started having these meetings or town halls. They preached that the end of times was coming any day and there was a sense of urgency to follow them if you wanted to get to Heaven.
Later, in September 1975, Applewhite and Nettles preached at a motel in Waldport, Oregon. After selling all "worldly" possessions and saying farewell to loved ones, around 20 people vanished from the public eye and joined the group. Later that year, on CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite reported on the disappearances in one of the first national reports on the developing religious group: "A score of persons... have disappeared. It's a mystery whether they've been taken on a so-called trip to eternity — or simply been taken." In reality, Applewhite and Nettles had arranged for the group to go underground. From that point, "Do and Ti" (pronounced "doe and tee"), as the two now called themselves, led nearly one hundred members across the country, sleeping in tents and sleeping bags and begging in the streets. Evading detection by the authorities and media enabled the group to focus on Do and Ti's doctrine of helping members of the crew achieve a "higher evolutionary level" above human, which they claimed to have already reached.
The crew used numerous methods of recruitment as they toured the United States in destitution, proclaiming the gospel of higher-level metamorphosis, the deceit of humans by false-God spirits, envelopment with sunlight for meditative healing, and the divinity of the "UFO Two".
In April 1976, the group stopped recruiting and became reclusive, and instituted a rigid set of behavioral guidelines, including banning sexual activity and the use of drugs. Applewhite and Nettles also solidified their temporal and religious authority over the group. Benjamin Zeller described the movement as having transformed "from a loosely organized social group to a centralized religious movement comparable to a roving monastery."
The group was very secretive as they did not want the media and authorities to be involved. The name of their process was " Human Individual Metamorphous". No one had any authority over anyone else because they believed that if you have "attachments, entanglements, or ties to anyone or anything on Earth, you would be unable to get to Heaven.
They were very nomadic, about 200 people, going from campground to campground. They lived on donations and would go door to door spreading the message and asking for money. They often took turns, getting up for 1 hour per night, looking at the sky for UFOs. This cult took people from their kids, their families, jobs, anything that would keep them from being a candidate to get to Heaven. To me, the effect that TI and DO had on these people, was incredibly extreme and drastic and I honestly had no idea what went through the heads of these people.
Initially, the group had been told that they would be biologically and chemically transformed into extraterrestrial beings and would be transported aboard a spacecraft, which would come to Earth and take them to heaven - referred to as the "Next Level". When Bonnie Lou Nettles (Ti) died of cancer in 1985, the group's doctrine was confounded because Nettles was allegedly chosen by the Next Level to be a messenger on Earth, yet her body had died instead of leaving physically to outer space. Their belief system was then revised to include the leaving of consciousness from the body as equivalent to leaving the Earth in a spacecraft.
The group declared that they were against, as suicide, defined "suicide" in their own context to mean "to turn against the Next Level when it is being offered" and believed their "human" bodies were only "vehicles" meant to help them on their journey. Suicide, therefore, would be not allowing their consciousness to leave their human bodies to join the next level; remaining alive instead of participating in the group, suicide was considered suicide of their consciousness. In conversation, when referring to a person or a person's body, they routinely used the word "vehicle". The members of the group gave themselves three letter names with the suffix -ody that they adopted in lieu of their original given names, which defines "children of the Next Level". This is mentioned in Applewhite's final video, Do's Final Exit, filmed March 19–20, 1997, just days prior to the mass suicide.
The classes began after recruitment ended in 1976. They distributed books that they put together to lay down the rules and regulations. You must be obedient, down to the size of a pancake you could make, how many you got, and the amount of syrup. These rules were very strict, and it was well known that anyone who didn't follow the rules or had any doubts had to go. The mind control and excessive obedience was incredibly sad to watch and read about.
Members of Heaven's Gate believed that evil space aliens, called Luciferians, falsely represented themselves to Earthlings as "God" and conspired to keep humans from developing. As technically advanced humanoids, these aliens have spacecraft, space-time travel, telepathy, and increased longevity. They are carnal beings with gender, and they stopped training to achieve the Kingdom of God thousands of years ago. Heaven's Gate believed that all existing religions on Earth had been corrupted by these malevolent aliens.
They even changed terminology so that when you talked of your mind, you spoke about your computer. Your earthly body was your vehicle and so one. What they were attempting to do, was to detach your memories. Remove any thought processes you had. DO was gay. He didn't believe in homosexuality but was gay. At some point, DO or another member (who is unclear), came up with the idea of castration to remove your sexuality and sexual thoughts. They asked for volunteers and the very first castration went wrong. They ended up taking the member to the hospital and he did survive. However, DO realized that nurses cannot perform this procedure and so doctors were found to castrate any members that still were requesting it.
In 1978, effectively the group became a monastery and lived the ways of the monk. This is when the unisex look came into the picture. Uniforms with patches that stated " Heaven's Gate Away Team. They molded this concept around Star Trek. All of the members had short cut hair, you were not allowed to keep your regular appearance. No makeup for the women. The men, if they had beards, were to shave them off to give themselves their new identity. Imagine your family member just disappears one day and you have no answers. You don't know if your loved one is dead or alive. I couldn't imagine.
In October 1996, the group rented a large house which they called "The Monastery", a 9,200 square feet mansion located near 18341 Colina Norte (later changed to 18239 Paseo Victoria) in Rancho Santa Fe. They paid $7,000 per month in cash for rent. The same month, the group purchased alien abduction insurance that would cover up to fifty members and would pay out $1 million per person (the policy covered abduction, impregnation, or death by aliens). Um, where the hell can you get this type of insurance??Prior to this, in June 1995 they had purchased land near Manzano, New Mexico and began creating a compound out of rubber tires and concrete, but had left abruptly in April 1996.
On March 19–20, 1997, Marshall Applewhite taped himself in Do's Final Exit, speaking of mass suicide and "the only way to evacuate this Earth". After asserting that Comet-Hale Bop was the sign that the group had been looking for, as well as speculation that a (UFO) may have been trailing the comet, Applewhite and his 38 followers prepared for ritual suicide so their souls could reach the Next Level before the closure of "Heaven's Gate". Members believed that after their deaths a UFO would take their souls to another "level of existence above human", which Applewhite described as being both physical and spiritual. Their preparations included each member videotaping a farewell message.
To kill themselves, members took phenobarbital mixed with apple sauce or pudding and washed it down with vodka. After ingesting the applesauce/pudding mix, they secured plastic bags around their heads to induce loss of breath. All 39 were dressed in identical black shirts and sweatpants, brand new black-and-white Nike Decades athletic shoes, and armband patches reading "Heaven's Gate Away Team. The black and white Nike Decades they were found dead in were very quickly taken off the market by Nike and never made again. On Ebay, there are a few pair that can you bid on from people that bought them before the mass suicide. Why you would want them is unknown to me.
Each member carried a five-dollar bill and three quarters in their pockets. According to former members, this was standard for members leaving the home for jobs and "a humorous way to tell us they all had left the planet permanently"; the five-dollar bill was for covering the cost of vagrancy laws and the quarters were for calling home from pay phones. After each one died, a living member would arrange the body by removing the plastic bag from the person's head, followed by posing the body so that it lay neatly in its own bed, with faces and torsos covered by a square purple cloth for privacy. In an interview with Harry Robinson, the two surviving members said that the identical clothing was a uniform representing unity for the mass suicide, while the Nike Decades were chosen because the group "got a good deal on the shoes". Applewhite was also a fan of Nikes "and therefore everyone was expected to wear and like Nikes" within the group. Heaven's Gate also had a saying 'Just Do it,' echoing Nike's slogan. They pronounced Do as Doe, to reflect Applewhite's nickname. That is a whole other can of worms....
The 39 people, 21 women and 18 men between the ages of 26 and 72, are believed to have died in three groups over three successive days, with remaining participants cleaning up after each prior group's deaths. The suicides occurred in groups of fifteen, fifteen, and nine, between approximately March 22 and March 26. Among the dead was Thomas Nichols, brother of the actress Nichelle Nichols, who was best known for her role as Uhura in the original television series of Star Trek. I remember watching an interview that she did talking about how tragic it was to know that her brother died for the thoughts of others. Leader Applewhite was the third to last member to die; two people remained after him and were the only ones found with bags over their heads and not having purple cloths covering their top halves. Before the last of the suicides, similar sets of packages were sent to numerous Heaven's Gate affiliated (or formerly affiliated) individuals, and at least one media outlet, the BBC department responsible for Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends, for which Heaven's Gate had earlier declined participation.
Among those in the list of recipients was Rio DiAngelo. The package DiAngelo received on the evening of March 25, as other packages sent had, contained two VHS videotapes, one with Do's Final Exit, and the other with the "farewell messages" of group followers. It also contained a letter, stating that among other things, "we have exited our vehicles, just as we entered them." DiAngelo informed his boss of the contents of the packages and then received a ride from him from Los Angeles to the Heaven's Gate home in Rancho Santa Fe so he could verify the letter. DiAngelo found a back door intentionally left unlocked to allow access and used a video camera to record what he found. After leaving the house, DiAngelo's boss, who had waited outside, encouraged him to make calls alerting the police.
The San Diego County Sheriff's Department received an anonymous tip through the 911 system at 3:15 p.m. on March 26 suggesting they "check on the welfare of the residents". Days after the suicides, the caller was revealed to be DiAngelo.
Caller: Yes, I need to report an anonymous tip, who do I talk to? Sherriff's Department: Okay, this is regarding what? Caller: This is regarding a mass suicide, and I can give you the address ... — San Diego County 911 call, March 26, 1997, 3:15 p.m. PST
The first deputy who first responded to the call entered the home through a side door, saw ten bodies, and was nearly overcome by a "very strong odor (The bodies were already decomposing in the hot Southern California heat.) After a search by two more deputies found no one alive, they retreated until a search warrant could be obtained. All 39 bodies were eventually cremated.
At least three former members of Heaven's Gate died by suicide in the months following the mass suicide. On May 6, 1997, Wayne Cooke and Chuck Humphrey attempted suicide in a hotel in a manner similar to that used by the group. Cooke died but Humphrey survived. Another former member, James Pirkey Jr., died by suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot wound on May 11. Humphrey, who had survived his first attempt, ultimately killed himself in Arizona in February 1998. How sad.
If you are interested, you can view the videos and the camera footage on Youtube and it is featured in the docuseries on MAX called "Heavens Gate: The Cult of Cults."
Sources:
Heaven's Gate: The Cult of Cults- MAX
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