Heaven's Gate Cult Analysis

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This paper will be examining The ‘Heaven’s Gate’ cult in relation to the topic of collective behaviour. The ‘Heaven’s Gate’ was a cult led by Marshall Applewhite, “who claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus and a higher alien life form” (Locher, 2002, pp. 88). Applewhite and the wider group believed that a spaceship was going to take them to heaven (‘The Next Level’), and the only way to access this spaceship was to commit suicide (Locher, 2002, p. 88). A cult is defined as a group with an excessive commitment to a particular belief, in which rituals and socialisation are used by the leader to commit members to the ideology, which is in the best interests of the leader (Jenkinson, 2008). The ‘Heaven’s Gate’ appears to be an example of collective …show more content…

Jenkinson (2008) labels this phenomenon as a ‘cult pseudo-personality’, the dropping of one’s old values and behaviours and internalising the cult’s worldview. This suggests that this collective-wide ‘cult pseudo-personality’ formed via the leaders socialisation is the controlling force of the collective behaviour. Under this new worldview, a person’s sense of individuality and reason may be weakened, possibly making them susceptible to external influence. This may explain why the followers of ‘The Heaven’s Gate’ cult committed suicide together, as this new personality governed their thoughts. Balch provides evidence of this socialisation within ‘The Heaven’s Gate’ cult. Balch (1995) described that each individual was completely stripped of his or her old identities and had their human form minimised. The cult members were to dehumanise themselves; they wore clothes to cover their bodies at all times, were banned from sex and sexual urges had to be repressed (the male members were castrated) and participated in rituals to focus on ‘The Next Level’ rather than human thought were designed to keep them busy at all times (Balch, 1995). Therefore, the socialisation in the Heaven’s Gate cult may have stripped the participant’s sense of being human and changed their meaning and purpose in life, enabling them to engage in the collective …show more content…

It was found that the members might have joined the cult due to feeling lost, having a strong ideological hunger and a desire for a sense of community. The cult’s leader may have also had a strong influence on the unification and maintenance of this cult, with Applewhite’s alleged promises of spirituality and a meaning to life, coupled with the participants’ unconscious desire to be ruled. However, under the emergent norm perspective, this instance of collective behaviour may be seen as rational due to the participants having the chance to make decisions after engaging in social interaction. Nevertheless, more evidence was found in support of irrationality, as the collective behaviour and rituals of the cult might have changed the participants’ worldview and conscious personality, resulting in a collective personality and a state of submission to the leader. This paper has highlighted the importance of knowing why these types of collective behaviour occur, and could be used to help prevent future mass suicides and other

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