Marshall Applewhite Heaven's Gate Cult

Another well-known cult leader is Marshall Applewhite, one of the founders of Heaven’s Gate. Applewhite was born on May 17, 1931 in Texas. He was a music teacher who was also well known for having good public speaking skills. He moved to Huston in the 1960’s to take over as head of the university’s music department. Shortly after moving, Marshall began to experience a mental decline. He and his wife divorced, he quit his job, and left his children. In the midst of a nervous breakdown and near-death experience, he met a nurse at a hospital named Bonnie Nettles. Nettles played a main role in Applewhite’s turn toward religion, as she is the one who recruited him to join the group, of which they would become co-leaders. She told him that his declining

health had occurred for a specific reason, and that it was his destiny to form the cult.
Applewhite and Nettles began to recruit followers in 1975. The pair was convinced that “they were the two witnesses mentioned in Revelation 11”, and that they were sent to Earth with a special mission (Lewis, 1998, p. 87). They believed in a version of heaven called the “Level Above Human-a physical and literal Heaven in outer space” (Marshall Herff Applewhite Biography, n.d.). Applewhite preached to his followers that he and Nettles were sent to Earth to help the others be able to enter this version of heaven. He instructed to them that in order to reach the “Level Above Human,” they needed to give up all of their humanly needs and abandon all that was human in themselves. To give into these humanly desires was weak and made them unworthy. If they did as he said, a spacecraft would come for them, and they would be able to ascend into the level. Once they reached this level, their human body would undergo a type of metamorphosis into a higher physical existence. In order to do this, he commanded them to give up any material objects they owned, cut themselves off from anyone not in the group, and be detached from all human emotions. Only then could they “perfect themselves” into being worthy of this heaven (Lewis, 1998, p.87). Eventually the pair managed to recruit around 200 members into their following and moved to Colorado. However, they were unsatisfied with the dedication of some members and began to dismiss anyone that they did not see as being completely dedicated to group.
Bonnie Nettles died in 1985, and the group phased out for a short time.

Five years later, Applewhite revived the cult and began preaching the old ideas to attract new members. A comet was discovered in 1995, known as the Hale-Bop comet. Applewhite took a particular interest in the comet and believed that this was a sign that the spacecraft was finally arriving to take them to the “Level Above Human.” With the arrival of the Internet, the group began creating websites and even posting videos, encouraging others to join them before it was too late (Marshall Herff Applewhite Biography, n.d.). In 1997, as the comet traveled closer and closer to the Earth, Applewhite decided that it was finally time to for them to “leave.” He instructed his followers to commit a mass suicide, by drinking a mixture of alcohol and barbiturates. Applewhite and thirty-eight of his members drank the lethal mixture and were found

dead.
A third religious cult leader is David Koresh. Before changing his name, he was born Vernon Howell in 1959 to a single teenage mother. He had a lonely upbringing and did not fit in well at school. He displayed a strong interest in religion from a young age and joined the Seventh-Day Adventist church in 1979. He was later kicked out the church for preaching his own theology and views to the young people of the church. A short time later, in 1981, he learned of the Branch Davidians, and joined their sect of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. There he became close with the sect’s leader, Lois Roden, and took over the group when she died in 1986.
The first thing he did as leader of the Brand Davidians is change his name to David Koresh. He chose this name because it “suggested he was a spiritual heir of the biblical King David, and that he, like Koresh, was a messianic figure- though not the Messiah-Jesus” (Melton, n.d.). He declared to that group, that as a messianic figure, he was the perfect mate for all of the female followers. After this announcement, he took several wives in order to fulfill his plan of creating a lineage of “Gods children,” whom he believed would eventually rule the world (Lewis, 1998, p. 75). Koresh also concluded that the impending apocalypse was going to take place soon, and he began to have followers prepare by collecting supplies such as food and weapons.
Around 1992, the Branch Davidians began to attract media attention due to former members speaking out on abuse.

Many of Koresh’s wives were underage, and allegations of child abuse were coming forward. There were also investigations into firearm and explosives possession, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms of the Department of Treasury (ATF), obtained warrants in order to search the group’s compound. The ATF launched their unsuccessful raid on the compound on February 28, 1993. The raid resulted in a standoff in which four agents were killed and six Branch Davidians members were left fatally wounded. Because Koresh had previously told members to collect food for the apocalypse, the group had plenty of supplies to last in the compound and he refused to surrender. After fifty one days, on April 18th, the Federal Bureau of Investigation took charge and launched an assault on the complex. In order to force members out of the compound, the FBI pumped tear gas into the building. The members held their ground and refused to leave the building, many of them protected by gas masks they had stockpiled. Six hours into the assault, a fire erupted from within the building. Still, only a few Brand Davidians decided to flee the building to safety, leaving eighty members, including Koresh to die. FBI investigators later determine that members inside the building, as an act of suicide, intentionally started the fire (ATF Raids Brand Dravidian Compound,

1993).
Jones, Applewhite, and Koresh are all examples of leaders who believed that were far superior to others, almost god-like. For many of us it is hard to imagine choosing to lead our lives in one of their cults. Nonetheless, these leader used their narcissism, good public speaking skills, promises of a better life, and other persuasive tactics to lure susceptible people into their following. Blinded by this façade, many of their followers remained completely obedient to them, as they could not see the manipulation and abuse they were facing.