heavens gate

Heaven’s Gate is a destructive, doomsday cult centered in California. 21 women and 18 men voluntarily committed suicide in three groups on three successive days starting on March 23, 1997. Most were in their 40′s; the rest covered an age range of 26 to 72. Two months later, two additional members, Charles Humphrey and Wayne Cooke attempted suicide in a hotel room a few miles from the Rancho Santa Fe mansion; Cooke succeeded. Humphrey tried again in the Arizona desert during Feb 1998 and was successful.
They followed a syncretistic religion, combining elements of Christianity with unusual beliefs about the nature of UFOs. They interpreted passages from the four gospels and the book Revelation as referring to UFO visitation. In particular, they emphasized a story in Revelation which described two witnesses who are killed, remained dead for 3 1/2 days, were revived and taken up into the clouds. They look upon earth as being in the control of evil forces, and perceived themselves as being among the elite who would attain heaven. They held a profoundly dualistic belief of the soul as being a superior entity which is only housed temporarily in a body. Applewhite said that bodies were only “the temporary containers of the soul…The final act of metamorphosis or separation from the human kingdom is the ‘disconnect’ or separation from the human physical container or body in order to be released from the human environment.” Marshall Herff Applewhite was born May 17, 1931 in Spur, Texas to Louise Haeker Winfield and Marshall Herff Applewhite Sr.  
 Marshall Applewhite saw various natural disasters like the eruption of Mount St. Helens and other earthquake occurrences as possible signs of when the group should make their final move to ascend. However, it wasn’t until July of 1995 when he listened to the late-night Art Bell radio show that Applewhite heard the final message he was looking for. There was news that there was a “companion UFO” trailing the Comet Hale-Bopp. An amateur astronomer from Houston by the name of Chuck Shramek, called the Art Bell program to report that he had taken a photograph which showed a large object behind the comet. He described the object to be up to four times the size of Earth. The next night, Courtney Brown, a tenured professor of political science at Emory University and director of the Farsight Institute in Atlanta, was a guest on Bell’s show and claimed that three “remote viewers” associated with his institute had confirmed Shramek’s findings and had determined it to be a metallic object full of aliens. After the show, Brown sent Art Bell a picture of the comet with the companion UFO that he said was taken from a “top-ten university” astronomer that he knew. The condition was that Art Bell was not to post the image on his website until the astronomer had the chance to have the news conference about it. The news conference never took place and two months later, Art Bell posted the picture. The next day he was contacted by Oliver Hainut and David Tholen, two professors from the University of Hawaii, who let him know that the image was a fake. They provided a comparison of one of their recent comet photos to show that Brown’s image was a doctored copy of one of theirs. To this day, Courtney Brown has never revealed the name of the mysterious astronomer who took the photo and is also no longer welcome on the Art Bell show. Later on, the talk show host was questioned and put under fire about the show’s possible influence on the cult.

       Marshall had two older sisters (Louise Winant Applewhite who was born in 1927 and Jane in 1929) and one younger brother (John Winfield born in 1942). His father was a Presbyterian minister. While growing up, Marshall’s father moved around frequently starting new churches in various locations of Texas. As a teenager, Marshall Applewhite wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and preach. His sister Louise described him growing up as funny, charismatic, and an overachiever. He went to Corpus Christi High School (now known as Roy Miller High School) where he was on the honor roll and amongst the head of

In order to fight off any sexual desires and to live a strict life of celibacy, some male members resorted to castration. There seem to be various stories about the exact time and full details. One story explains that in 1993, at the toss of a coin, one of the members agreed to go down to Mexico and have his testicles removed. The result was a botched operation that gave him extreme swelling and a considerable amount of pain afterwards. Applewhite was then reported to have had himself castrated to lead the way for the others. Another story explains that Marshall had himself castrated after two other members had quietly went down to Mexico to have the procedure done. Five other members had themselves castrated after Applewhite. One of the former disciples explained that they “couldn’t stop smiling and giggling” after the procedure.   The New York Times tried to get an interview with Applewhite’s former wife, Ann. She would not have anything to do with the press. Her present husband, Sam Nickerson, stated that his wife hadn’t heard from her ex-husband since he left her in 1964, and that his stepson hadn’t seen his father since he was 5.

         “It was a different man who killed himself in California from the music teacher who married Ann – they didn’t even know it was him.”

         In 1999, the San Diego county had decided to auction off the cars, televisions and furniture that belonged to the Heaven’s Gate cult. The money from the auction was to pay for the county administration costs and part of a $100,000 bill for funeral expenses of the cult members. The event created yet another media frenzy, with people from all over the world showing up. The money generated from the auction was supposed to go to family members to help them cover burial costs for their loved ones.

        In April of 1998, under the non-profit name, the “Telah Foundation”, two former cult members filed a petition to block the auction proceedings. Mark and Sarah King of Phoenix, Arizona had left the cult 20 years earlier, but claimed to have still remained in contact with the group. They also claimed to have the full proprietary rights to the property left by Heaven’s Gate. The couple left the celibate cult 20 years ago so they could marry. They had produced letters from cult members, along with a map and a pass code to an Escondido storage locker, to show that the group had intended the couple to take possession of the property. They said the deceased members were concerned that their possessions might fall into the wrong hands. Superior Court Judge Lisa Guy-Schall rejected the former cult members’ claim and ordered the couple to pay $17,000 in county legal fees for filing a frivolous claim. After that decision, the lawyers for the couple approached county officials with an offer to drop their appeal if they could gain ownership of certain belongings. They reached a settlement with the county and paid $2,000 for the religious writings, artwork, a videotape, and more than 20 arm patches left behind by the group. The video left behind showed members talking about how they plan to catch a ride on the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet to “reach a higher level of consciousness”. As part of the agreement, Mark and Sarah King had agreed not to sell the items. The couple went on to obtain the trademarks and copyrights for the all artwork, videotapes and Heaven’s Gate writings. The county contended that the rest of the property belonged to the owner of the estate. The deceased cult members’ families filed a $130,000 claim against the Heaven’s Gate estate owner to cover the burial costs and other outstanding debts they had occurred. At the time, the County Public Administrator estimated the estate net worth at around $50,000, but speculated the auction might take in a higher amount considering that the money generated would help recover surviving families’ costs. The county went though a series of negotiations with several of the cult members’ families and agreed that they would not exploit the sale by advertising the auctioned belongings as being from the Heaven’s Gate estate.

 his class.

son of charles manson

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LIKE many adopted children, Matthew Roberts set about finding his biological parents with a mix of nerves and excitement.

In particular, he hoped that discovering his father’s identity would help him to work out what made him the man he had become.nothing could have prepared him for being told his dad was… serial killerCHARLES MANSON.
Over a five-week period in the summer of 1969, Manson and his Family of commune followers committed a series of nine gruesome murders. Victims included pregnant actress Sharon Tate, wife of film director Roman Polanski.
Matthew, 41 – who bears a haunting resemblance to his father – sank into depression after discovering his identity.
He has since been in contact with his dad in a series of letters to his California prison and Manson has replied – each time chillingly signing off with a swastika.
Now Matthew, who was given up for adoption as a baby, has told of his horror at finding out he was the son of a monsterwas frightened and angry. It's like finding out that Adolf Hitler is your father.

'I'm a peaceful person - trapped in the face of a monster.'

He added: 'My hero is Gandhi. I'm an extremely non-violent, peaceful person and a vegetarian. 

'I don't even kill bugs,' he told The Sun.

Matthew, who grew up in Rockford, Illinois found out he was adopted when he was a ten-year-old schoolboy.

But it wasn't until he reached the age of 29 that he began to trace his family tree with the help of a search agency who found his biological mother Terry.

The pair began writing to each other and at first she refused to pass on details of his father.

Slowly, through a series of letters, the truth emerged.

His mother told him she had been captivated by Manson, who she met in 1967.

Ignoring the warnings of her father to steer clear, she joined him and other Manson Family cult members in San Francisco.

She claims she was raped by him during one of many drug-fuelled orgies and returned home pregnant. Matthew was born in 1968.

When Terry saw a photograph of her son she said her suspicions that evil Manson was the father were confirmed.

Their facial features are near identical and they shared the same thick, dark hair.

'I'm not nuts but I've got a little bit of it, said Matthew.

'It's scary and upsetting. If I get worked up, my eyes get really big and that's really freaked some people out before.

'I've tried to tone that down quite a bit. I don't like having that effect on people.

'I don't even like the fact that I'm big. It makes me even scarier.' 

It was several years later before he decided to make contact with his father - who is now aged 75 and will never be freed from Corcoran State Prison in California.

Manson replied to Matthew's letter straightaway and has since sent him a string of ten rambling handwritten notes and  postcards signed with the swastika - a symbol the killer has tattooed on his forehead.

He also confirmed he was his father, recalling times spent with Matthew's mother.

'He sends me weird stuff and always signs it with his swastika. At first I was stunned and depressed. I wasn't able to speak for a day. I remember not being able to eat.'

But Matthew added: 'He's my biological father - I can't help but have some kind of emotional connection. That's the hardest thing of all - feeling love for a monster who raped my mother.  

'I don't want to love him, but I don't want to hate him eitherCrazed cult leader Charles Manson has broken a 20-year silence in a prison interview coinciding with the 40th anniversary of his conviction for the gruesome Sharon Tate murders - to speak out about global warming.

The infamous killer, who started championing environmental causes from behind bars, bemoaned the 'bad things' being done to environment in a rambling phone interview from his Californian jail cell.

'Everyone’s God and if we don’t wake up to that there’s going to be no weather because our polar caps are melting because we’re doing bad things to the atmosphere.

'If we don’t change that as rapidly as I’m speaking to you now, if we don’t put the green back on the planet and put the trees back that we’ve butchered, if we don’t go to war against the problem...' he added, trailing off.

Manson, who described himself to his interviewer as a 'bad man who shoots people', brainwashed members of a commune known as The Family into butchering eight people including film director Roman Polanski’s pregnant wife Sharon Tate in July and August 1969.

Speaking to Vanity Fair Spain magazine of the killing spree he led his crazed disciples on, the 76-year-old said: 'I live in the underworld. I don’t tell people what to do. They know what to do.

'If they don’t know what to do they don’t come around me because I’m very mean, I’m very mean.'The last interview aired with the killer in September 2007 - dubbed The Mind of Manson - was a full version of the 1987 interview he gave US cable news channel MSNBC at Califonia’s San Quentin State Prison.

He told Vanity Fair Spain magazine: 'You have to accept yourself as God. You have to realise you’re just the Devil just as much as you’re God, that you’re everything and you’re nothing at all.

'Europe is the United States just as much as the United States is America and America is Europe.'

Manson, whose new lawyer Giovanni Di Stefano recently asked Barack Obama to set him free, also had harsh words for the US President.

Describing him as a 'slave of Wall Street', Manson said: 'I think Obama is an idiot for doing what he’s doing. They’re playing with him.'

Other than Manson, Mr Di Stefano's client list has included defending Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, as well as Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic during his war crimes hearings.

Manson's death sentence for his involvement in the Tate/LaBianca murders was commuted to life in prison when California abolished the death penalty.

Since then he has attracted a number of followers because of his infamy, but also because of his perceived environmental conscience.

He is a founder of ATWA (which both stands for Air Trees Water Animals and All The Way Alive). It's typically manic mission statement warns of the destruction of the planet from pollution.

Another ATWA founder, Lynette Fromme,  was jailed for the attempted assassination of President Gerald Ford with an unloaded gun in 1975. The claimed she did so 'for the redwoods'.  

On the environment, Manson said: 'Sooner or later the will of God will prevail over all of you. And I was condemned as the will of God.'

'We are all martyrs. Love is a martyr... I am a martyr. But I am also a victim. And I'm a performer. And a dam. I'm both. I am everything. I am nothing
.The Manson Family was a cult started by Charles Manson. Manson was born to Kathleen Maddox, an unwed sixteen year old girl, in 1934. It is said that his mother, an alcoholic, sold him to buy beer. When he was returned to her she had him sent to a boarding school. After a number of years living with his religious aunt and uncle, he returned to his mother who rejected him.
 After a number of robberies, he was put in jail for the first time. One month before his parole hearing in 1952, he raped a boy in jail by holding a razor to his throat. Two years later he was paroled. Manson began to pimp a young woman he met and eventually took her, and a second woman to New Mexico to work for him as prostitutes.
 He was caught and tried under the Mann Act (a 1910 act that prohibited white slavery and trafficking for immoral means).

In 1967 he was released (having spent more than half of his life in institutions). Upon release, he requested permission to move to San Francisco which was granted. When he arrived he became part of the Hippie movement centered around the Haight-Ashbury region and he set himself up as a guru. He moved in with 23 year old student Mary Brunner and convinced her to allow other women to join them. Eventually eighteen other women were living with them – this was the beginning of the family.
By 1968, Manson had established a home for the “family” at a ranch owned by George Spahn. Manson convinced one of the family members, Lynette Fromme, to sleep with Spahn in order to get free rent. 
Manson began teaching his followers that social uprisings were coming – using the assassination of Martin Luther King as evidence. He also told them that the social turmoil he had been predicting had also been predicted by The Beatles. The White Album songs, he declared, told it all, although in code; in fact, he maintained, the album was directed at the Family itself, an elect group that was being instructed to preserve the worthy from the impending disaster.
In 1969, on August 8, Manson told Family members at Spahn Ranch, “now is the time for Helter Skelter.” That evening the family, under the direction of Manson, would commit the famous murder of Sharon Tate, leading to other murders over the two day period.