Bonus Episode: George Chryssides

perspective to the ideas we explored this season. I had originally planned to do a couple of episodes during season three on the Heaven's Gate group that committed mass suicide in nineteen ninety seven, but as my research continued and the season took shape, I realized that Heaven's Gate didn't quite fit into the larger narrative. In the meantime, though I had conduct I did two interviews with leading Heaven's Gate scholars, so this week and next we'll present those interviews.

There are plenty of podcasts and documentaries on Heaven's Gate, so if you've seen or listened to one or more of those, I think this will give you some great insight. If you aren't familiar with Heaven's Gate, this will introduce you to some of the issues surrounding the group and what they believed. In this episode, I talked with George Crisidis, who is an honorary Research Fellow in Contemporary Religion at York Saint John University in England.

The Theosophical Society is perhaps not so well known today, but it's an organization that deals mainly with giving lectures on well, anything other than Christian ideas. Really, Nettles was particularly interested in channeling, which is communication with spirits, some of the spirits being extraterrestrials. She came from a Baptist family evidently, but doesn't appear to be much interested in

mainstream Christian beliefs. The Theosophists were interested in pretty well anything other than Christianity, so it was a way of exploring other philosophies and points of view. Bonnielo Nettles met Marshall apple White in a hospital. The circumstances of that aren't clear. Some people say he was a patient, some people say he was just visiting. We don't know for sure that happened and in nineteen seventy two. Apple White was a musician. He was a professor of music at

the University of Saint Thomas in Texas. His father was a Christian minister, and he had studied or he had attended theological seminary for a term, which is a bit surprising given his interpretation at the Bible. But I was at a seminary myself, and there were some people with some strange views there. So anyway, when the two of them met up, they decided that they had things in common and that they had a special mission. And in particular, they claimed that they were the two witnesses that I

mentioned in the Book of Revelation. So the Book of Revelation is always a good book for inspiring all sorts of different and novel ideas. They claimed that there were the two witnesses. They started by trial traveling around the country, leaving not saying to people sometimes they sick them in tupet, saying the two witnesses are here. And they didn't make

terribly much headway that way. They did this traveling in a higher car which they failed to return to the owners, and both of them were in prison for fraud for a short period. So it was evidently in that time in prison that apple White developed his ideas about euphology. And brought together the worldview that they're kind of famous

or notorious for. They got together again once they were freed, and they started organizing public meetings, and the public meetings said do you want to know about UFOs, they really are here, or words to that effect. And then one of the interesting things about their lecture series was that they said, this is not a discussion about UFOs. And that's a key thing I think about new religious leaders.

Things have never matters of discussion. The confident they know and they are ours curiosity, And I think again curiosity is a key factor in the development of Heaven's Gate and indeed in quite a number of new religions. And if you tell people that that's something is the case. I guess it's the same in the advertising industry. Advertisers evident they are better off saying could this be an effective cure for arthritis or whatever, rather than saying, definitely

it is, And then people get hooked. They start want being well Willner's work, and they joined to find out. So I don't know exactly how many people attended these lectures. I think the audience is vary depending on the venue, but they attracted a following and they took them on various locations where they camped and they became a community. There were as many as two hundred at its peak.

Now that may sound a lot, but when you compare it with other new religious movements, the Raelian movement, probably listeners have heard of Ryl who does all sorts of outrageous things and gets people going. They've got ninety nine thousand followers at the last count, So by comparison, Heaven's Gate was small. And the two hundred drops to thirty nine who were the ones that finally committed suicide, So it was a very small group. It probably would have

they didn't do insignificance if that disaster hadn't happened. The community dispersed. At one point they had organized their public meetings, they had set up their camps, but then they were told that the various members were to disperse and to go and propagate the message whenever they could. And then in nineteen seventy six they set up a remote camp in Laramie and Wyoming, and that was when they recalled

the members of the group. They sent out words somehow that they were reassembling, and people came back to this camp and it was at that point that they were given these rather strange names that people associate the group with. They were called things like melody of They've got rather strange spellings these names. There was a secord E. It was the one that actually left the movement, Glinda d. All The names ended in or d y for reasons and are totally clear, maybe to sound kind of diminutive.

They were the kind of children with doors. They're kind of parents that might have been it. It's also been suggested that because the pair called themselves T and door or D was a kind of contraction of door and T T so ord why is kind of roughly sound equivalent of the two names. We don't know for sure what the explanation was, but they were all given these special names, and then in the remote champ they would organized into groups of two. Each one had a check partner.

The check partner, as they called him or her, was of the opposite sex, but the relationship hadn't to be sexual. They were a celibate community, and I mean some of them had problems about celibacy. Some of them took drugs to control their hormones. Some of them, a few of them resorted to surgery, sometimes doing it themselves, whereby they removed their testicles. I mean that must have involved quite a lot of commitment to be willing to do that.

It would be extremely painful. I would guess they were organized into these peers, and then there was a lot well, I should say that in nineteen eighty five that was the kind of turning point in the movement because in that year Bonnie Nettles died of cancer. Now that's a bit of a problem. If you've got the two, then you'd left with just one, so what do you do with that. The belief was that actually Nettles had gone to this next level above human. That was one of

their key teachings. The next level above human the level at which the extraterrestrials lived, and the idea was that she had left the body, she was the first of those who were about to do the same. They would leave the body and be sent up to the next level above human. And the belief system was that there were the extraterrestrials occupied the level above human. There was an adversarial community of fallen at extraterrestrials. They were the Luciferians,

and then there were the humans. Whose aim was to go above the human level, to this level above hum many, but not everyone would do that. It was only those who were tagged. They were especially chosen individuals that the extraterrestrials had been brought together. So that was basically the philosophy of the group, and that was the kind of background against the mass suicide that happened in nineteen ninety seven.

wasn't working offly well. So apple White said, well, okay, you can communicate, but only use one word for what you want of your partner. So if you were cooking eggs and wanted your partner to pass the eggs, you would say eggs, and then that was supposed to be it. The partner would know what he or she was meant to do. So it's unreasonable behavior to expect the people, but it's a kind of test of commitment. If you're prepared to do that, then you've demonstrated that you're willing

to obey your leader. So if you tell the group you're going to disperse, then you've kind of demonstrated that you're in command. Maybe it was an attempt to kind of spread the message there, again, we don't know for sure.

he didn't really mean that. He really meant he was right and he knew it. I think also these kind of unreasonable commands, it wasn't something that was particularly Germane to Heaven's gage. You get other leaders doing that. David Koresh and Wakel would say things like you you mustn't eat any chocolate today, and then that's what would happen. And particularly if you're saying things that relate to people's diets,

that is quite an effective way of controlling people. So you do tend to get this kind of control in your religious groups, particularly when they're in community.

you can attract followers. So everyone has got to look at the kind of ingredients that are in the charismatic leader. And I mean, somebody's charisma might be a turn off to other people. Certainly, the people that are held up as charismatic leaders in new religious movements, as far as I'm personally concerned, they are turned off. I mean, we all know people that we find really inspiring and others

are really not inspiring. Having listened to Apple white S lectures, I would have to put him in the second category from my point of view, the tedious, They're boring. He gives a very strange interpretation of the Bible. Onward, he

knows very little. His teachings come from a combination of this belief in UFOs, and then to that he adds a kind of biblical justification that's derived from a few accounts in the Gospels, some bits of revelation, a little bit of Paul and I don't think he ever refers to the Old Testament at all, so there's very little biblical knowledge, but nonetheless his followers seem to have been impressed by that. Partly, I think to be charismatic, you've

got to have confidence. Psychologists have commented on a new religious leaders have often said that they're narcissistic, that they have a very firm belief in their own potential and qualifications and status, and I think that's true of a lot. I think, having looked at a number of charismatic leaders, I think there are a few other ingredients that I would add. You've got to arouse curiosity. As I said, I think that's something that in the study of new

religions we don't talk about a lot. You've got to kind of make people wonder if what you're saying is true, but at the same time not question it. And then if you can put that across to people, then that's part of being a charismatic leader. Controlling people, as I mentioned, is another one. If you can give commands that they've got to obey. I think also the scholar David Brombley says that it's important for these leaders to maintain their charisma so in other words, you've got to make sure

that there's nobody that assurps your authority. So in the case of Apple White and Metals, they were the only ones that had communication with the extraterrestrials. So that was one of the reasons why they made it clear this is not a UFO spotting group, because once you do that, then other members are going to say, well, I've had messages from the extraterrestrials. And once you do that, once you democratize the channel of communication with the ETS, then

you've lost control. In fact, Rile they leader of the Aralians, he did have somebody that cleaned rivalship. At one point, this particular student of his had said that she had been in touch with the Elohim, the extraterrestrials, and Rail's way of dealing with that was simply to say, you're out. You're not part of the organization. So it's important to maintain this chartismatic position that you've established.

sort of thing. So they're still expecting that there will be a further opportunity that they'll have. Now, the extraterrestrials only arrive every two thousand years, evidently, so they're going to have to wait a long time. So their belief is that they will die and reincarnate, and their hope is that they will reincarnate at a time when there is the opportunity for the extraterrestrials to have tagged them and to take them up to the level above humanly.

So it's a kind of hope they're saying, well, we just went ready for it.

took from death to resurrection. So three and a half days was the time scale that the Book of Revelation said, Apple White had suggested at one point that they would attract opposition, that there were people that would be able to kill them, but that's what would happen. Now that didn't take place. So what you have to do if you're a religious leader is to say, well, not exactly that we were wrong, but it's going to happen in

some other way. And eventually, when they were part of this community in the very large mansion that they bought, then they were progressively taught that they're dying and rising again would be the suicide. And then that wouldn't be the end for them because although their bodies would be dead, then their spirits, so their minds, of ours alls would be taken up and they would be given you bodies

appropriate to the level above human. So that was the idea. Yeah, if you tell people that you want them to commit suicide at first acquaintance, that doesn't work.

How would I move from where I am now to where apple White got himself and actually successfully persuaded thirty nine people. I mean, that's a puzzle. I've got one of two ideas about that. Part of the problem with suicide groups is that they tend to be groups that are closed. They're kind of isolated. I've actually visited the Heaven's Gate site and it's fairly remote, well by British

standards anyway. It's got a lot of acurage. I couldn't see exactly how much, but when you look at the pictures that were taken, it looks a very busy place, but that's only because of a lots of ambulances and emergency vehicles there. It's not on the main road. It's to our thinking. It's in the middle of nowhere. That are properties nearby, but they're very large properties with very large so if you wanted to see your next door neighbor you'd have quite a walk. So from our point

of view, it's remote. I've actually been to Waco as well, and it's twelve miles outside the town of Waco. So again you've got a community that is fairly closed. The contact with them kind of every day at normal human beings is fairly limited. In addition, when you think of the amount of time some of them spent with Apple Wide, they weren't allowed to read newspapers, watch television, kind of find out in any detail what was happening in the

outside world. Some of his followers spent a whole twenty two years without normal human contact, simply listening to Apple White all the time. Now, if that's your own resource of information, then you're going to observe it, you're going to take it in Probably you're not going to be in a position to argue with him, even if the argument is allowed to say, well, I don't accept your understanding of the Bible because religious literacy is not very high.

Fewer than half Americans can't name the four Gospels. Now, from my point of view, that's pretty basic. I don't remember not knowing what the four Gospels were. But if you're in that country where you don't get religious education in school, so you only get it if you've been to church, and maybe you don't go to church. Then twenty years, twenty two years of healing Apple White, you'll think that that is the true interpretation of the Bible.

There was one member that actually went on record as saying, Wow, I'm really impressed by T and DAW's knowledge of scripture. Well, I mean obvious, she couldn't have known very much about the Bible to say that, because apart from anything else, he only refers to very veitue Bible passages, which in

chair pres in this rather strange way. So they get kind of combination of being in community, being almost isolated from the outside world, being there for a very long time with no kind of touchstone of reality outside the organization, and then that's going to make for a situation where you think, well, maybe this is right. The apple bouts the leader. So some people would say that's brainwashing. And

I don't like the chair. We try to avoid using it because it's not what it means, but it's certainly psychological conditioning that you're subjected to.

nobody that was after them. There weren't opponents, and they weren't anti cult people that were saying we want to rescue our children. In fact, to went children. The aphrotage age was forty seven when the suicide started. It's a real puzzle in many ways.

I can't be called the exact passages, but the idea was that the earth was kind of at an end, but also the earth was a kind of vinyard that may be tender and it may be radical transformation.

was a whole ambient culture at the time. The movement started in the mid seventies, So in the mid seventies there was certainly an interest in UFOs and in space travel. The Americans had landed on the Moon in nineteen sixty nine, so big interest in that. There was a book that came out. I don't know if theers will recall it, Chariots of the Gods by Eric Vondanakin. I don't know if you remember that one.

are actually spacecraft that they're talking about. They visited the air. It was a very physical interpretation of the Bible and the world that Christians think about as heaven. There wasn't any kind of supernatural world. There was a physical world. It was just kind of far distant. It was where people in outer space lived and they were about to visit the planet, or we had already done so, and

that was the idea. And then in the cinema, of course, there were lots of films that were very popular and on television Star Trek Doctor who had the Daleks. I don't know if they were very influential in terms of religion, but there was the whole ambient culture of the film two thousand and one. Each year, I think came a bit later close encounters. I think lots of us when you saw these films and found them great entertainment, but didn't attach very much by way of truth to them.

But some people did. There is some people did think this showed that there were an extraterrestials And I've known a few people that said, yeah, they've been here. One thing that I think I pointed out in an article I wrote on Head and Skate is that when you've got a leader of a religious movement, they usually make some plan for who's going to take over, because in most religions, the leader accepts that they're going to die

and leave followers behind. So you get this with well with the president Dalai Lama, for instance, he hasn't named the success there, but there are non methods whereby you select the next one so people know what to do, or maybe a leader has got the right hand man or a woman that is kind of ready to take over. With apple Bite, this wasn't the case. It was only apple White. There were no other teachers that did the teaching,

propagated the ideas. And it appears he was also quite seriously ill before the suicides of nineteen ninety seven, so that perhaps indicates that he had actually planned to end his movement the way he did, because otherwise there would have been nothing left. I would suspect that the rest of the group we wouldn't have known really what to do. I think there's that aspect that there needs to be

considered as well. The other thing that's important about the suicides is that they occurred probably exactly two thousand years after the birth of Jesus, because nineteen ninety seven, I think historians agreed that Jesus wasn't born in year zero or the year one. It was possibly for BCEE, So that being the case, nineteen ninety seven would be exactly

two thousand years on. So around about that time there were a number of groups that either expected an immediate return of Christ or in the case of Waco, that was the crunch point as far as the groups were concerned. Was also the Soul of Temple where there were mistivious deaths suicide, maybe murders. In that period. You were kind of at the end of the millennium, and that was reckoned to be significant in many ways for a number of groups.

Skate was, you don't make these decisions. They're made for you. You're kind of looked after. And apple White was the kind of father figure, so it's almost like a reversion to childhood. You've got your parents there that will make the decisions for you. It's also the case that it's not young people that join, and certainly not in the case of Heaven's Gate. The average age, as I mentioned, was forty seven, so I think the oldest was seventy

two and the youngest was I think twenty seven. If had a number right, you've got a large age range in the group. And unlike a number of religious groups where maybe somebody has finished school and there's having a gap year, we don't have so many gap years now in Britain. But if people had a gap year, then there were things caught to do with it, and that was quite typically how some people got involved in new religions like the Unification Church, but that wasn't the case

with Heaven's Gate. These were professional people. There were people that were computer programmers. There was a gummy chef, there was a nurse, there was a mechanic. One of them was a nutritionist. So they were all professional people. So it's very easy to think you must be really stupid to join a group like that, But these people weren't stupid.

They made a conscious decision to join Apple why it And they obviously found him convincing and people can be convinced about all sorts of things, including wanting to commit suicide.

Aaron Manke, and supervising producer Josh Thain. Learn more about the show at Grimminmile dot com, slash Strange Arrivals, and find more podcasts from iHeartRadio by visiting the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.