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Introduction to Heaven's Gate Tragedy

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       On March 28, 1997, the Unites States awoke to the news that authorities in Rancho Santa Fe, California had discovered the bodies of 39 cult members who had committed suicide. For the next several days this story dominated broadcast journalism and received considerable coverage in print journalism as well.

       Early reports about fast breaking stories are often fragmentary and the information highly misleading. This story was no exception. Authorities on the scene initially identified the group as "Higher Source." The age composition was reported to range of 18-24, plus two older persons. Some news accounts said all the members were male. And there were reports that branches of the group in other locations might also be planning, or already have committed suicide.

       As it turned out, the group's name was Heaven's Gate -- although this was only the latest of several names the group had assumed over the previous two decades. Higher Source was the name of the computer company of the group. The mean age of the group members was 46.7, more than twice the average as initially reported! The sex ratio was about equal. Only the report that the event might have been related to the appearance of the Comet Hale-Bopp seemed to have been correct.

       If much of the information the news media pieced together in the early hours after the story broke was wrong or misleading, those reporting errors paled to insignificance in the face of misinformation, tales of deception, and just plain lies that came from a cadre of now well known professional cult-bashers. Their role as experts is self-proclaimed, and their information is as preprogrammed and predictable as the spot in the sky were one could find Hale-Bopp on a given evening during its pass by planet earth. Their contribution to promoting hate and divisiveness in human cultures is considerable. In providing a platform for these self-proclaimed experts, the media are co-participants in a feeding frenzy that makes thoughtful assessment and learning from this tragic event extremely difficult.

       This web site was created for and by students of religious movements at the University of Virginia. It seeks to bring together, in a single location, information that is of value for understanding religious movements -- the place of these groups in history as well as contemporary culture. It seeks also to identify resources that can help to better understand the response of the host culture to the many religious groups that seem to live in a cognitive world beyond conventional comprehension.

       When this story broke, systematic information about the Heaven's Gate group was available primarily through the writings of one scholar, Robert W. Balch, Professor of Sociology at the University of Montana. Balch first studied this group in 1975. His writings, along with the extensive materials left behind by Heaven's Gate, make it possible for scholars, and students alike, to learn a great deal about the group.

       To help facilitate the serious study of the group, their tragic ending, and the response of mass media and the public to the event, this site will seek to provide a gateway to Internet resources, as well as previously published materials. Use the index below to explore the resources available through this page. We welcome correspondence regarding the availability of URLs that are not presently linked to this page, as well as information about links that are no longer available.

       If this is your first visit to this web site, Be sure to take a look at the wider religious movement resources available at the New Religious Movements web site, of which this profile is but a subset.

resources

• Archived Mirror of Heaven's Gate Site
  Our online archived mirror of the Heaven's Gate Web site as it was on the day of the group's suicide.
  Note: Other mirror sites are available.

• Profile of Heaven's Gate
  An orientation to the Heaven's Gate group, along with extensive discussion of their theology and an analysis of the group's extinction.

• Links to Print and Broadcast Archives
  An index of archived news resources that are available on the Internet.

• Links to Web Sites about UFO Groups
  A Profile of several of the major UFO-centered religious groups on the Internet. Also, links to the homepages and ohter sites about these groups.

• Heaven's Gate: A Sociological Perspective
  Mass media coverage of events like the Heaven's Gate suicides substantially employ the language and concepts of the anti-cults, i.e., the tragedy is explained in terms of unscrupulous, manipulative leaders "brainwashing" vulnerable followers. Such an interpretation makes for sensational news copy, with clearly definable villians and victims. But this one formula fits all tragedies does little to help us really understand what happened and how. This research paper by University of Virginia graduate student Patricia Goerman provides an excellent example of how basic sociological concepts about religion may be employed to gain considerable insight and understanding.

• Making Sense of the Heaven's Gate Suicides: An Anthropological Perspective
  Irving Hexham and Karla Poewe provide another excellent example of how social science concepts and theory can illumine an event like this. Hexham and Poewe use classical anthropological theory to shed significant light on how a group can construct a "deviant reality" out of ideas that are centrally a part of contemporary popular culture.

• Bibliography of Scholarly Writings about Heaven's Gate
  This is a bibliography of the writings of Robert Balch, sociologist from the University of Montanta, who studied Heaven's Gate from its formative days.

Maintained by: Craig Hirsch.
Last modified: 07/18/01