Marshall Herff Applewhite Jr. (May 17, 1931 – March 24, 1997), also known as Do, among other names, was an American religious leader who founded and led the Heaven's Gate new religious movement (often described as a cult), and organized their mass suicide in 1997. The suicide is the largest mass suicide to occur inside the United States.
As a young man, Applewhite attended several universities and served in the United States Army. He initially pursued a career in education until he resigned from the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas, in 1970 after an inappropriate relationship with a male student. His father's death a year later brought on severe depression. In 1972, Applewhite developed a close friendship with Bonnie Nettles, a nurse; together, they discussed mysticism at length and concluded that they were called as divine messengers. They operated a bookstore and teaching center for a short while and then began to travel around the U.S. in 1973 to spread their views. They gained only one convert. In August 1974, Applewhite was arrested in Harlingen, Texas, for failing to return a rental car and was extradited to Missouri where he was subsequently jailed for six months. In jail, he further developed his theology.
After Applewhite's release, he and Nettles travelled to California and Oregon, eventually gaining a group of committed "students." They told their followers that they would be visited by extraterrestrials who would provide them with new bodies. Applewhite initially stated that he and his followers would physically ascend to a spaceship, where their bodies would be transformed, but later he came to believe that their bodies were the mere "human vehicles," or containers of their souls, which would later be placed into new bodies. These ideas were expressed with language drawn from Christian eschatology, the New Age movement and American popular culture.
Heaven's Gate received an influx of funds in the late 1970s, which it used to pay housing and other expenses. In 1985, Nettles died, leaving Applewhite distraught and challenging his views on physical ascension. In the early 1990s, the group took more steps to publicize their theology. In 1996, they learned of the approach of Comet Hale–Bopp and rumors of an accompanying spaceship, concluding that this was the vessel that would take their spirits on board for a journey to another planet. Believing that their souls would ascend to the spaceship and be given new bodies, the group members committed mass suicide in a rented mansion. A media circus followed the discovery of their bodies. In the aftermath, commentators and academics discussed how Applewhite persuaded people to follow his commands, including suicide. Some commentators attributed his followers' willingness to commit suicide to his skill as a manipulator, while others argued that their willingness was due to their faith in the narrative that he constructed.
Early life and education Marshall Herff Applewhite Jr. was born in Spur, Texas, on May 17, 1931, to Marshall Herff Applewhite Sr. and his wife Louise (née Winfield).Texas Birth Index, online at ancestry.com He had three siblings. The son of a Presbyterian minister, Applewhite became very religious as a child.
Applewhite attended Corpus Christi High School and Austin College; at the latter school, he was active in several student organizations and was moderately religious. He earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1952 and subsequently enrolled at Union Presbyterian Seminary to study theology, hoping to become a minister. He married Anne Pearce around that time, and they later had two children, Mark and Lane. Early in his seminary studies, Applewhite decided to leave the school to pursue a career in music, becoming the music director of a Presbyterian church in North Carolina. He was a baritone singer and enjoyed spirituals and the music of Handel.
In 1954, Applewhite was drafted by the United States Army and served in Austria and New Mexico as a member of the Army Signal Corps. He left the military in 1956 and enrolled at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he earned a master's degree in music and focused on musical theater.
Career Applewhite moved to New York City in an unsuccessful attempt to begin a professional singing career upon finishing his education in Colorado. He then taught at the University of Alabama (UA). Applewhite lost his position there after pursuing a sexual relationship with a male student; society was not supportive of same-sex relationships and he was subsequently frustrated by his sexual desires. He separated from his wife when she learned of the affair in 1965, and they divorced three years later. When Applewhite revealed to his parents that he was homosexual, his father rejected him.
In 1965, after leaving UA, Applewhite moved to Houston to serve as chair of the music department at the University of St. Thomas. His students regarded him as an engaging speaker and a stylish dresser. He also became a locally popular singer, serving as the choral director of an Episcopal church and performing with the Houston Grand Opera. In Houston, Applewhite was briefly openly gay but also pursued a relationship with a young woman, who left him under pressure from her family; he was greatly upset by this outcome. He resigned from the University of St. Thomas in 1970, citing depression and other emotional problems. Robert Balch and David Taylor, sociologists who studied Applewhite's group, speculate that this departure was prompted by another affair between Applewhite and a student. The president of the university later recalled that Applewhite was often mentally jumbled and disorganized near the end of his employment.
In 1971, Applewhite briefly moved to New Mexico, where he operated a delicatessen. He was popular with customers but decided to return to Texas later that year. Applewhite's father died around that time; the loss took a significant emotional toll on him, causing severe depression. His debts mounted, leading him to borrow money from friends.
Introduction to Nettles and first travels
In 1972, Applewhite met Bonnie Nettles, a nurse with an interest in Theosophy and Biblical prophecy. The two quickly became close friends; he later recalled that he felt like he had known her for a long time and concluded that they had met in a past life. Nettles told Applewhite their meeting had been foretold to her by extraterrestrials, persuading him that he had a divine assignment. By that time, he had begun to investigate alternatives to traditional Christian doctrine, including astrology.
Applewhite soon began to live with Nettles full-time. Although they cohabited, their relationship was not a sexual one, fulfilling his longtime wish to have a deep and loving, yet platonic, relationship. Nettles was married with four children, but after she became close with Applewhite, her husband divorced her and she lost custody of the children. Applewhite permanently broke off contact with his family as well. He saw Nettles as his soulmate, and some of his acquaintances later recalled that she had a strong influence on him. Raine writes that Nettles "was responsible for reinforcing his emerging delusional beliefs", but psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton speculates that Nettles' influence helped him avoid further psychological deterioration.
Applewhite and Nettles opened a bookstore known as the Christian Arts Center, which carried books from a variety of spiritual backgrounds. They also launched a venture known as Know Place to teach classes on theosophy and mysticism. The pair closed these businesses a short time later. In February 1973, Applewhite and Nettles resolved to travel to teach others about their beliefs and drove throughout the Western U.S.; Lifton describes their travels as a "restless, intense, often confused, peripatetic spiritual journey". While traveling, they had little money and occasionally resorted to selling their blood or working odd jobs for much-needed funds. The pair subsisted solely on bread rolls at times, often camped out, and sometimes did not pay their lodging bills. One of their friends from Houston corresponded with them and accepted their teachings. They visited her in May 1974, and she became their first convert.
While traveling, Applewhite and Nettles pondered the life of Francis of Assisi and read works by authors including Helena Blavatsky, R. D. Laing, and Richard Bach. They kept a King James Version of the Bible with them and studied several passages from the New Testament, focusing on teachings about Christology, asceticism, and eschatology. Applewhite also read science fiction, including works by Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. By June 1974, Applewhite and Nettles' beliefs had solidified into a basic outline. They concluded that they had been chosen to fulfill biblical prophecies, and that they had been given higher-level minds than other people. They wrote a pamphlet that described Jesus' reincarnation as a Texan, a thinly veiled reference to Applewhite. Furthermore, they concluded that they were the two witnesses described in the Book of Revelation and occasionally visited churches or other spiritual groups to speak of their identities, often referring to themselves as "The Two", or "The UFO Two". The pair believed that they would be killed and then restored to life and, in view of others, transported onto a spaceship. This event, which they referred to as "the Demonstration", was to prove their claims. To their dismay, these ideas were poorly received.
Arrest and proselytism In August 1974, Applewhite was arrested in Harlingen, Texas, for failing to return a car that he had rented in Missouri. He was extradited to St. Louis and jailed for six months. At the time, Applewhite maintained that he had been "divinely authorized" to keep the car. While jailed, he pondered theology and subsequently abandoned discussion of occult topics in favor of extraterrestrials and evolution.
After Applewhite's release, Nettles and he resolved to contact extraterrestrials and began seeking like-minded followers. They published advertisements for meetings, where they recruited disciples, whom they called "crew". At these events, they purported to represent beings from another planet, the Next Level, who sought participants for an experiment. They claimed that those who agreed to take part in the experiment would be brought to a higher evolutionary level. Nettles and Applewhite referred to themselves as "Guinea" and "Pig". Applewhite described his role as a "lab instructor" and served as the primary speaker, while Nettles occasionally interjected clarifying remarks or corrections. The two seldom personally spoke with attendees, only taking phone numbers with which they could contact them. They initially named their organization the Anonymous Sexaholics Celibate Church, but it soon became known as the Human Individual Metamorphosis.
Applewhite believed in the ancient astronaut hypothesis, which claimed that extraterrestrials had visited humanity in the past and placed humans on Earth and would return to collect a select few. Parts of this teaching bear similarities to the Reformed Christian concept of election, likely owing to Applewhite's Presbyterian upbringing.