Heaven's Gate

Heaven's Gate was an American new religious group that taught salvation required leaving human life behind for a higher extraterrestrial existence. Thirty-nine members died in a mass suicide in 1997.

Marshall Applewhite: Marshall Applewhite was an American religious leader who co-founded Heaven's Gate and led it after Bonnie Nettles's death. His teachings and leadership shaped the group that carried out the 1997 deaths.
Do's Informational Bulletin: Do's Informational Bulletin was a Heaven's Gate publication explaining its teachings and expectations for members. It offers a direct account of the group's beliefs in Applewhite's own instructional voice.
Heaven's Gate mass suicide: The Heaven's Gate mass suicide was the 1997 deaths of 39 group members in a rented house in Rancho Santa Fe, California. This event brought the group to worldwide attention and remains central to accounts of its history.
Mass suicide: Mass suicide is the coordinated death by suicide of multiple people in a shared event. The 1997 deaths became one of the most widely documented modern examples of this phenomenon.
Bonnie Nettles: Bonnie Nettles was an American nurse and religious leader who co-founded Heaven's Gate with Marshall Applewhite. Her partnership with Applewhite began the movement and informed its early theology.
Christian millenarianism: Christian millenarianism is the belief that Christ will establish a transformed divine order, often after an imminent apocalypse. Heaven's Gate recast biblical end-times expectations through extraterrestrial language.
Hale–Bopp comet: Hale–Bopp was a bright comet visible from Earth in 1996 and 1997. The group interpreted the comet's appearance as connected to a spacecraft accompanying it.
Cult: A cult is a socially charged label for a group perceived as unorthodox, controlling, or centered on a charismatic leader. The label dominates public accounts, but it can obscure specific beliefs and members' varied experiences.
Human Individual Metamorphosis: Human Individual Metamorphosis was the name Applewhite and Nettles gave their movement's program of spiritual transformation. The early name expressed their belief that followers could become members of an extraterrestrial order.
Asceticism: Asceticism is the practice of renouncing bodily pleasures or material attachments for spiritual purposes. Members' disciplined communal life reflected the group's effort to detach from earthly identity.

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