Cuckoo Marshall Applewhite Heavens Gate Cult Postcard

[1] On March 26, 1997, police discovered the bodies of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult, all of whom had died by apparent suicide. The group's end coincided with the appearance of Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997. Heaven's Gate members believed that the planet Earth was about to be recycled (wiped clean, renewed, refurbished and rejuvenated), and that the only chance to survive was to leave it immediately. While the group was formally against suicide, they defined "suicide" in their own context to mean "to turn against the Next Level when it is being offered",[4] and believed that their "human" bodies were only vessels meant to help them on their journey. The group believed in several paths for a person to leave the Earth and survive before the "recycling", one of which was hating this world strongly enough: "It is also possible that part of our test of faith is our hating this world, even our flesh body, to the extent to be willing to leave it without any proof of the Next Level's existence". The members of the group added "-ody" to the first names they adopted in lieu of their original given names, which defines "children of the Next Level." This is mentioned in Applewhite's final video, "Do's Final Exit," that was filmed on March 19, 1997, just days prior to the suicides.