‘Graduation’ from the Human Level
Revisiting the Weird Heaven’s Gate ‘Cult’ Tragedy
#memoriesfromdiaries
29th March 1997
I was recently leafing through some of my old diary entries of almost three decades ago, when I stumbled upon an entry that I had written on 29th March 1997.
It transported me right back to the bizarre and the most shocking news that I had read thus far on mass suicides!
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A bit of a flashback as a background to the news –
Well, Comet Hale-Bopp, is a long-period comet that became one of the brightest and most widely observed comets of the 20th century. It was discovered independently on 23rd July 1995, by two amateur astronomers in the United States, Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp.
Quite surprisingly, they were able to spot it when it was still incredibly far from the Sun (between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn). This early discovery gave professional astronomers and the public a lot of time to prepare for its arrival. This comet - Hale-Bopp - holds the record for the longest period of naked-eye visibility.
The comet could be seen without a telescope for an astonishing duration of 18 months - double the previous record set by the Great Comet of 1811. At its peak in April 1997, it was easily visible even from brightly lit, light-polluted cities.
As it approached the Sun, Hale-Bopp put on a brilliant display, exhibiting distinct tails.
Now coming back to the specific news –
Yes! while Hale-Bopp was indeed a scientific marvel of sorts that had inspired awe and admiration worldwide, its arrival also had a dark and seamier side to it!
A cult from San Diego, USA (named the Heaven’s Gate cult) believed that an alien spacecraft was trailing the comet. In a 2014 book on the event, titled, Heaven’s Gate, Benjamin E. Zeller describes in detail, the trigger for the cult! He had also got vital info from Robert W. Balch who had ‘infiltrated’ the group ever since 1975.
Robert W. Balch says -
In 1975, a core belief was that humans did not have to die to enter heaven; rather, possession of a living, physical body was required to board the spacecraft. But, by 1997, this belief had undergone a dramatic change. Now, the only way members could get to heaven was by leaving their bodies, or, as they put it, “exiting” their human “vehicles.”
The most important of these is the theme of separation from all things human. From the beginning, the group was based on the idea of cutting ties with the past, overcoming human attachments, and ultimately leaving Earth altogether. Eventually, suicide came to be seen as nothing more than the final act of separation!
My diary entry goes on to document the exact wording the group used on their early web page as well! What strikes me now, looking back at these handwritten notes, is how the cult’s rhetoric appropriated everyday, pedagogical language to justify the unthinkable. They viewed their twenty-two years on Earth merely as a “classroom.”
The cult, as the entry notes, was founded in the 70s by Marshall Applewhite (who called himself ‘Do’) and his wife (‘Ti’).
My entry conclude with the stark, logistical facts of the tragedy: thirty-nine lives lost, carried out in three staggered batches over a period of three days.
Ultimately, it was a belief system built on a profound detachment from the body. As I wrote at the very end of the page: “According to them, Bodies are physical vehicles / containers.”
Decades later, revisiting this text proves to be a haunting reminder of the profound vulnerability of the human search for meaning!
To end this post on a slightly philosophical note –
Well, to search for meaning is to admit that we don’t already have all the answers!
When people look for purpose – be it in art, or the work they do – they realise the meaninglessness of it all!
Thinkers like Viktor Frankl, who found meaning even in the darkest of human conditions, or Albert Camus, who embraced the absurdity of the search itself, built their philosophies on this exact vulnerability. It is the core of the human condition.
In analysing centuries of human literature, history, and art, we can see clearly that this fragile, relentless search for meaning is the driving force behind almost everything beautiful and tragic humanity has ever created!
In fact, literature could be called, humanity’s ongoing, documented dialogue with the void or meaninglessness!
Almost all writers of fiction indulge in this documentation with the void!
And literature across ages, has striven to capture and to document this fragile, relentless pursuit of meaning!
Firstly, let’s take the example of Frankenstein’s monster, ‘created’ by Mary Shelley. Thrust into the world without his consent, abandoned by his creator, and violently rejected by society, he is forced to figure out his own purpose. His agonizing question to Victor Frankenstein - demanding to know why he was made only to suffer - is the ultimate existential cry! It perfectly captures the fragility of needing a reason for being, and the terrifying silence when the “creator” has no good answer.
Secondly, let’s take Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett – a play that strips the search for meaning down to its barest bones. Vladimir and Estragon spend the entire narrative waiting on a desolate road for someone named Godot, who never arrives. They don’t even know exactly who Godot is or what he will do for them, but they are terrified to leave in case they miss him.
Thirdly, let’s analyse Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, in which Captain Ahab’s obsessive hunt for the white whale isn’t just about revenge; it’s a desperate attempt to force the universe to make sense. The whale is just an animal - blank, indifferent, and acting on instinct.
However, Ahab cannot accept an indifferent universe. He projects purpose, and profound meaning onto the whale because it is easier to fight a demon than to accept that the world is random and chaotic. The fragility here is Ahab’s mind breaking under the weight of an unanswerable universe.
In all of these works, the search isn’t a triumphant quest; it is a profound struggle to make sense of the human condition.
In the end then, whether we are looking for a spaceship behind a comet or waiting for Godot, it ain’t the answers that make us human! It’s the search! the quest - that makes us human beings or rather… literary beings! 😊
