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Heaven's Gate: Cult Suicide in San Diego
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333 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1997
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April 2, 2016
On cold March nights in early spring 1997 I would tramp into my yard and tilt my head directly skyward and stare a long time at the bright fuzzy space traveler known as Comet Hale-Bopp. It was the brightest and longest visible comet to be seen from my vantage point on Earth in my lifetime. Viewing it was a privilege, since it had not been in earth's neighborhood for 4,000 years and would not be back again for that same duration.
I could not have known at the time that across the country, in a palatial estate outside San Diego, 39 members of a religious cult called Heaven's Gate also were watching Hale-Bopp with great interest. To them, the comet was the "marker" -- the literal sign from above, from a Higher Source (the name of the cult's online presence, as it happened) -- that would bring them to end their lives in mass suicide. The comet, they believed, shielded a UFO behind it that was coming to pick them up, allow them to shed their "containers" (their human bodies) so that they could evolve into alien life forms ("the level above human"). Anyone paying very close attention (and not many people were) might have noticed that the Heaven's Gate cult in its various permutations since its formation in the 1970s (as the Human Individual Metamorphosis, for instance) had been the subject of frequent media scrutiny: the subject of an article in Psychology Today, analysis in Jacques Vallee's book Messengers of Deception and topic of press accounts including one report delivered by none other than Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News.
But, attention spans are short, the media is fickle, and soon the inscrutable doings of the cult founded by Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles (variously known as The Two, Bo and Beep, and Ti and Do) faded from short-term collective memory. When the 1997 suicides happened the cult seemed to have come out of nowhere for most news consumers and the media itself.
Because the cult operated a sophisticated and fairly successful web page design business for conventional clients, its own "recruitment" site was excellent in terms of design for the time period, but it also led to the group being deigned --erroneously at the time -- as a "computer cult." Its usual designation as a "UFO cult" also is not entirely accurate, since the belief system was a hodgepodge of Christianity and science fiction. The cult, is in fact, a very American phenomenon, built on Puritanical guilt stemming from Christianity (the cult's desire to attain "a level above human" was really nothing more than classical mortification/death/punishment/rejection of the flesh and its attendant "sins" -- and was marked by Applewhite's guilt over his homosexuality, fueled by his own religious childhood.) And the end result was a cult with members who strived for androgyny and sexlessness, both in action and appearance: no intercourse, short hair, drab uniforms, and even -- for some willing males, castration: a step taken by Applewhite and at least five of his charges.
As the website announced, to anyone who cared at the time: "Hale-Bopp brings closure to Heaven's Gate." The website, maintained as a sort of shrine, can still be seen here: http://www.heavensgate.com/
And so, the 39 members, working in teams over three days, took turns committing suicide in staggered shifts, covering each other in shrouds and placing plastic bags over their heads and eating pudding laced with phenobarbital and downed by a vodka chaser to magnify the drug's effects. For a week or so, the cult's demise was big news, then largely forgotten.
I never quite forgot them, though, partly because I was always intrigued by their website, visiting it every few years as the spirit moved me, partly because the idea of impermanent things like websites freezing a historical moment in time, especially a tragic one, appeals to my fascination about time and death, stasis and change.
Along with this, I would every once in awhile remind myself to try and find a book about the cult and get the whole story about what actually happened to them and why, how they were formed, what they believed, how they lived and how their lives affected others.
So when this book turned up on the New Age clearance shelf for a buck a few weeks ago at Half Price Books, I snapped it up. Noting its cover touting its authorship as "the staff of the New York Post" put me on immediate notice that the thing would probably be on the level of tabloid trash, which it is, though I had no idea just how bad it could get. So let me tell you.
Actually, before I do that, I do have to say that the book does pretty much cover the basic journalistic who, what, why, when, where and how. I did learn about the origins of the cult, its history (though fragmentary), its beliefs, the media frenzy surrounding the discovery of the bodies and the anguish of the detectives as they first entered the stench-filled charnel house, and background on other cults as well as the nuttiness that can sometimes be California.
Unfortunately, it is also, quite possibly, the worst written and edited book I've ever read, poorly organized and repetitive, padded with irrelevancies, shallow and lacking in insight, erroneous in its assumptions, frequently illogical and disingenuous, and exceedingly condescending and lacking objectivity. Of course, this was a book rushed to market by a sleazy newspaper to exploit a still-fresh grim story, which accounts for the frequent repetition of the same quotes (in one instance in consecutive paragraphs!), typos, abrupt narrative shifts, and dubious editorial interpretations of the facts.
What's really abhorrent about the book, though, is the condescending, name-calling tone of what is ostensibly a journalistic effort. Constantly throughout the book, the cult members are referred to (not as quoted by others, but by the authors) as "loonies," "UFO-obsessed computer geeks," "UFO freaks," "flying saucer freaks," "nuts' and so on. In an unsurprising turn of hypocrisy in the latter chapters of the book, the authors criticize others for their lack of compassion because they branded the cultists as wackos and nuts! In part, it seemed merely an excuse for the minions of the Rupert Murdoch-owned ...Post to take score-settling digs at Murdoch's media rival, Ted Turner, who referred to the cultists as nuts. They devote more paragraphs to this point than is justified, and is obviously nothing but top-down sour grapes.
In one moment of hyperbole, the authors dub the 1979 Jonestown cult massacre, where nearly a thousand people committed suicide, "one of the darkest moments in world history." Really?
What was most interesting about this book, for me, was how it inadvertently made me think about the connections between cults and Christianity, particularly when the book quotes pastors and others speaking on behalf of the majority religions, and particularly when they want to distance themselves from cults by claiming that they have nothing to do with Christianity. As Applewhite's cult shows, cults are merely offshoots and variations of the majority religions, which in the case of America is of course Christianity.
In short, the book is a mess, but after the boring first hundred pages (which devotes too much ink to the media frenzy about the discovery of the suicides) I found it informative enough. I'd just like to find a more insightful and in-depth treatment.
I could not have known at the time that across the country, in a palatial estate outside San Diego, 39 members of a religious cult called Heaven's Gate also were watching Hale-Bopp with great interest. To them, the comet was the "marker" -- the literal sign from above, from a Higher Source (the name of the cult's online presence, as it happened) -- that would bring them to end their lives in mass suicide. The comet, they believed, shielded a UFO behind it that was coming to pick them up, allow them to shed their "containers" (their human bodies) so that they could evolve into alien life forms ("the level above human"). Anyone paying very close attention (and not many people were) might have noticed that the Heaven's Gate cult in its various permutations since its formation in the 1970s (as the Human Individual Metamorphosis, for instance) had been the subject of frequent media scrutiny: the subject of an article in Psychology Today, analysis in Jacques Vallee's book Messengers of Deception and topic of press accounts including one report delivered by none other than Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News.
But, attention spans are short, the media is fickle, and soon the inscrutable doings of the cult founded by Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles (variously known as The Two, Bo and Beep, and Ti and Do) faded from short-term collective memory. When the 1997 suicides happened the cult seemed to have come out of nowhere for most news consumers and the media itself.
Because the cult operated a sophisticated and fairly successful web page design business for conventional clients, its own "recruitment" site was excellent in terms of design for the time period, but it also led to the group being deigned --erroneously at the time -- as a "computer cult." Its usual designation as a "UFO cult" also is not entirely accurate, since the belief system was a hodgepodge of Christianity and science fiction. The cult, is in fact, a very American phenomenon, built on Puritanical guilt stemming from Christianity (the cult's desire to attain "a level above human" was really nothing more than classical mortification/death/punishment/rejection of the flesh and its attendant "sins" -- and was marked by Applewhite's guilt over his homosexuality, fueled by his own religious childhood.) And the end result was a cult with members who strived for androgyny and sexlessness, both in action and appearance: no intercourse, short hair, drab uniforms, and even -- for some willing males, castration: a step taken by Applewhite and at least five of his charges.
As the website announced, to anyone who cared at the time: "Hale-Bopp brings closure to Heaven's Gate." The website, maintained as a sort of shrine, can still be seen here: http://www.heavensgate.com/
And so, the 39 members, working in teams over three days, took turns committing suicide in staggered shifts, covering each other in shrouds and placing plastic bags over their heads and eating pudding laced with phenobarbital and downed by a vodka chaser to magnify the drug's effects. For a week or so, the cult's demise was big news, then largely forgotten.
I never quite forgot them, though, partly because I was always intrigued by their website, visiting it every few years as the spirit moved me, partly because the idea of impermanent things like websites freezing a historical moment in time, especially a tragic one, appeals to my fascination about time and death, stasis and change.
Along with this, I would every once in awhile remind myself to try and find a book about the cult and get the whole story about what actually happened to them and why, how they were formed, what they believed, how they lived and how their lives affected others.
So when this book turned up on the New Age clearance shelf for a buck a few weeks ago at Half Price Books, I snapped it up. Noting its cover touting its authorship as "the staff of the New York Post" put me on immediate notice that the thing would probably be on the level of tabloid trash, which it is, though I had no idea just how bad it could get. So let me tell you.
Actually, before I do that, I do have to say that the book does pretty much cover the basic journalistic who, what, why, when, where and how. I did learn about the origins of the cult, its history (though fragmentary), its beliefs, the media frenzy surrounding the discovery of the bodies and the anguish of the detectives as they first entered the stench-filled charnel house, and background on other cults as well as the nuttiness that can sometimes be California.
Unfortunately, it is also, quite possibly, the worst written and edited book I've ever read, poorly organized and repetitive, padded with irrelevancies, shallow and lacking in insight, erroneous in its assumptions, frequently illogical and disingenuous, and exceedingly condescending and lacking objectivity. Of course, this was a book rushed to market by a sleazy newspaper to exploit a still-fresh grim story, which accounts for the frequent repetition of the same quotes (in one instance in consecutive paragraphs!), typos, abrupt narrative shifts, and dubious editorial interpretations of the facts.
What's really abhorrent about the book, though, is the condescending, name-calling tone of what is ostensibly a journalistic effort. Constantly throughout the book, the cult members are referred to (not as quoted by others, but by the authors) as "loonies," "UFO-obsessed computer geeks," "UFO freaks," "flying saucer freaks," "nuts' and so on. In an unsurprising turn of hypocrisy in the latter chapters of the book, the authors criticize others for their lack of compassion because they branded the cultists as wackos and nuts! In part, it seemed merely an excuse for the minions of the Rupert Murdoch-owned ...Post to take score-settling digs at Murdoch's media rival, Ted Turner, who referred to the cultists as nuts. They devote more paragraphs to this point than is justified, and is obviously nothing but top-down sour grapes.
In one moment of hyperbole, the authors dub the 1979 Jonestown cult massacre, where nearly a thousand people committed suicide, "one of the darkest moments in world history." Really?
What was most interesting about this book, for me, was how it inadvertently made me think about the connections between cults and Christianity, particularly when the book quotes pastors and others speaking on behalf of the majority religions, and particularly when they want to distance themselves from cults by claiming that they have nothing to do with Christianity. As Applewhite's cult shows, cults are merely offshoots and variations of the majority religions, which in the case of America is of course Christianity.
In short, the book is a mess, but after the boring first hundred pages (which devotes too much ink to the media frenzy about the discovery of the suicides) I found it informative enough. I'd just like to find a more insightful and in-depth treatment.
October 15, 2022
Wow, this book was a lot.
I've always been intrigued by cults like Waco, Jonestown, and the most out of this world cult, Heaven's Gate. Heaven's Gate was led by Marshall Herff Applewhite and his wife, Bonnie Lu Nettles. Their group was significantly different from the others for a number of reasons. Let's start with the belief in UFO's. At the time of writing this post, it's 2022. We've now been told that there are other life forces out there (which, duh), but the government has actually acknowledged it now. But when Heaven's Gate formed in the 1970's, people were skeptical of UFO's and aliens. Heaven's Gate didn't just believe in these things, they also believed that they would be taken upon a spacecraft and transported to another world.
They also practiced celibacy, going as far as castrating several male members of the group including Applewhite himself. That alone sets them apart from many, many cults or fringe religious groups. Some people believed that Applewhite struggled with his sexual identity and this was his way of dealing with it. That seems a little extreme to me, but it was mentioned in the book.
Heaven's Gate: Cult Suicide in San Diego presents some bizarre theories that I feel need mentioning. Since it's publication in 1997, the internet has absolutely exploded. But at the time, the "World Wide Web" caught a lot of heat after the mass suicide of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate Cult. Many called the group things like "UFO Computer Cultists," "Computer Cult," "Internet Wackos." The internet was blamed for creating a forum for Applewhite to attract new members into his wild group.
This book also really needed a proofreader. There were so many basic grammatical errors and misspellings. But if you can move past that, there is valuable information about Heaven's Gate within it's pages. But there's also a slew of misinformation given what we know now.
More true crime reviews at A Reader's Diary.
I've always been intrigued by cults like Waco, Jonestown, and the most out of this world cult, Heaven's Gate. Heaven's Gate was led by Marshall Herff Applewhite and his wife, Bonnie Lu Nettles. Their group was significantly different from the others for a number of reasons. Let's start with the belief in UFO's. At the time of writing this post, it's 2022. We've now been told that there are other life forces out there (which, duh), but the government has actually acknowledged it now. But when Heaven's Gate formed in the 1970's, people were skeptical of UFO's and aliens. Heaven's Gate didn't just believe in these things, they also believed that they would be taken upon a spacecraft and transported to another world.
They also practiced celibacy, going as far as castrating several male members of the group including Applewhite himself. That alone sets them apart from many, many cults or fringe religious groups. Some people believed that Applewhite struggled with his sexual identity and this was his way of dealing with it. That seems a little extreme to me, but it was mentioned in the book.
Heaven's Gate: Cult Suicide in San Diego presents some bizarre theories that I feel need mentioning. Since it's publication in 1997, the internet has absolutely exploded. But at the time, the "World Wide Web" caught a lot of heat after the mass suicide of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate Cult. Many called the group things like "UFO Computer Cultists," "Computer Cult," "Internet Wackos." The internet was blamed for creating a forum for Applewhite to attract new members into his wild group.
This book also really needed a proofreader. There were so many basic grammatical errors and misspellings. But if you can move past that, there is valuable information about Heaven's Gate within it's pages. But there's also a slew of misinformation given what we know now.
More true crime reviews at A Reader's Diary.
February 26, 2014
A quick, easy read, feeling rushed in its prose (and riddled with typographical errors) as though crafted in haste to meet a stringent deadline. I am fascinated by fringe religious movements and the exceptional power they can wield over often bright and creative if wayward people who simply find the existential burden of having lots of questions and few answers exasperating. I was moved by accounts of the individuals but many of the buzz words used were alternately callous and sensationalistic, offending my sensibilities as an aspiring social scientist. I am glad I read it, but it left me, as perhaps the mass suicide itself left many people, starved for explanation. So maybe three and a half stars would be more appropriate, especially considering some of the good citations I got from this work to continue my research...
May 11, 2024
TWO JOURNALISTS TELL THE STORY OF THIS “FLYING SAUCER” CULT
Authors Bill Hoffman and Cathy Burke wrote in the first chapter of this 1997 book, “[Nick Matzorkis was] president of a successful Beverly Hills software company called Interact Entertainment Group… the thirty-four-year-old businessman… had agreed to make this unusual journey at the behest of [Robert] Rio D’Angeleo, a gifted employee and former member of a computer-obsessed religious cult known as ‘Heaven’s Gate.’ … Rio, forty-one, had set up a business arrangement between Heaven’s Gate and Interact to produce some websites. Jut four months earlier, Matzorkis had watched in amusement as several of the cult members surprised him … with a chocolate birthday cake… one of the women… said nonchalantly, ‘several of the male members have undergone surgery to have their testicles removed!’ In other words, voluntary castration… Everybody appeared androgynous with extremely short hair and loose dark pants and shirts… And all of them, well-educated with a full command of the language, seemed to have an extraordinary interest in science fiction---particularly in ‘Star Trek’ and ‘The X-Files.’” (Pg. 1-4)
They continue, “Matzorkis would get periodic [contacts] from a cult member. Once he received an e-mail message asking if he would be interested in helping produce a movie about Heaven’s Gate and its belief… ‘I remember them expressing frustration that in over twenty years of the group’s existence they had been unable to draw attention to themselves,’ Matzorkis would recall later… That’s when Rio burst in [to the office], clutching two videocassettes and a letter. The handwritten note said, matter-of-factly: ‘By the time this is read, we will have shed out containers… We’ll be gone. We came from the Level Above Human in distant space and we have now exited the bodies that we were wearing for our earthly task.’ … the contents of the two videotapes showed some of the people he’d once called brothers and sisters in the Heaven’s Gate cult giving short farewell speeches… it was evident that there were two possibilities… Either this was one really bad exercise in science fiction… Or it meant… this group ... were about to kill themselves.” (Pg. 4-7)
They go on, “attempts to reach cult members by phone failed. Rio, worried that something might be wrong asked Matzorkis to accompany him on a check of the estate the cult had called home… Rio emerged---looking as grim and as lifeless as a ghost… Rio breathlessly mumbled a few words and the paid sped off to notify authorities.” (Pg. 9)
They recount, “Officials noted that … the notion that Heaven’s Gate followers had of beaming onto a spaceship that was tailing the Hale-Bopp comet was wrong. Yes, scientists had noticed a small, bright ‘blip’ behind Hale-Bopp. But further study revealed that the UFO was actually a dim star. It showed the further futility of the group’s final flight into oblivion…” (Pg. 57-58)
They ask, “Was Applewhite’s cult, with its science-fiction mumbo jumbo about ‘shedding containers’ and going to another world, just the offshoot of a sexually tortured man ‘s inability to cope? Was his lifelong lust for men---and his guilt over it---the ultimate reason for the castrations, and eventually the mass suicide? The conclusive answer from the experts was ‘maybe.’” (Pg. 72)
They explain, “Bo and Peep… kept the fire alive. They knew the time and place and method to reach the ‘higher level.’ Part of their method of keeping recruits close was the constant tantalization of the imminent arrival of the beloved spaceship that would save them from the world. The date of arrival was never quite clear---and was the reason why so many finally defected from those early wanderings. ‘We have never stated the time,’ Bo argued.” (Pg. 128)
Prospective new members were given “a short but stifling list of No’s---no sex, no drugs, no liquor, no tobacco, no kids. Children are ‘not eligible for the space flight because the decision to go must be made by each individual,’ Bo told his New York Times Magazine interviewer. They claimed to have known nothing about members who gave up their kids to join… Socializing within the group was discouraged and there were no games, songs, public confessions, or rituals of any kind.” (Pg. 134-135)
They record, “‘I think everyone in this class wanted something more than this human world had to offer,’ one of the cult members said in her good-bye videotape.” (Pg. 212)
This book will be ‘must reading’ for anyone wanting to know about this cultic group.
Authors Bill Hoffman and Cathy Burke wrote in the first chapter of this 1997 book, “[Nick Matzorkis was] president of a successful Beverly Hills software company called Interact Entertainment Group… the thirty-four-year-old businessman… had agreed to make this unusual journey at the behest of [Robert] Rio D’Angeleo, a gifted employee and former member of a computer-obsessed religious cult known as ‘Heaven’s Gate.’ … Rio, forty-one, had set up a business arrangement between Heaven’s Gate and Interact to produce some websites. Jut four months earlier, Matzorkis had watched in amusement as several of the cult members surprised him … with a chocolate birthday cake… one of the women… said nonchalantly, ‘several of the male members have undergone surgery to have their testicles removed!’ In other words, voluntary castration… Everybody appeared androgynous with extremely short hair and loose dark pants and shirts… And all of them, well-educated with a full command of the language, seemed to have an extraordinary interest in science fiction---particularly in ‘Star Trek’ and ‘The X-Files.’” (Pg. 1-4)
They continue, “Matzorkis would get periodic [contacts] from a cult member. Once he received an e-mail message asking if he would be interested in helping produce a movie about Heaven’s Gate and its belief… ‘I remember them expressing frustration that in over twenty years of the group’s existence they had been unable to draw attention to themselves,’ Matzorkis would recall later… That’s when Rio burst in [to the office], clutching two videocassettes and a letter. The handwritten note said, matter-of-factly: ‘By the time this is read, we will have shed out containers… We’ll be gone. We came from the Level Above Human in distant space and we have now exited the bodies that we were wearing for our earthly task.’ … the contents of the two videotapes showed some of the people he’d once called brothers and sisters in the Heaven’s Gate cult giving short farewell speeches… it was evident that there were two possibilities… Either this was one really bad exercise in science fiction… Or it meant… this group ... were about to kill themselves.” (Pg. 4-7)
They go on, “attempts to reach cult members by phone failed. Rio, worried that something might be wrong asked Matzorkis to accompany him on a check of the estate the cult had called home… Rio emerged---looking as grim and as lifeless as a ghost… Rio breathlessly mumbled a few words and the paid sped off to notify authorities.” (Pg. 9)
They recount, “Officials noted that … the notion that Heaven’s Gate followers had of beaming onto a spaceship that was tailing the Hale-Bopp comet was wrong. Yes, scientists had noticed a small, bright ‘blip’ behind Hale-Bopp. But further study revealed that the UFO was actually a dim star. It showed the further futility of the group’s final flight into oblivion…” (Pg. 57-58)
They ask, “Was Applewhite’s cult, with its science-fiction mumbo jumbo about ‘shedding containers’ and going to another world, just the offshoot of a sexually tortured man ‘s inability to cope? Was his lifelong lust for men---and his guilt over it---the ultimate reason for the castrations, and eventually the mass suicide? The conclusive answer from the experts was ‘maybe.’” (Pg. 72)
They explain, “Bo and Peep… kept the fire alive. They knew the time and place and method to reach the ‘higher level.’ Part of their method of keeping recruits close was the constant tantalization of the imminent arrival of the beloved spaceship that would save them from the world. The date of arrival was never quite clear---and was the reason why so many finally defected from those early wanderings. ‘We have never stated the time,’ Bo argued.” (Pg. 128)
Prospective new members were given “a short but stifling list of No’s---no sex, no drugs, no liquor, no tobacco, no kids. Children are ‘not eligible for the space flight because the decision to go must be made by each individual,’ Bo told his New York Times Magazine interviewer. They claimed to have known nothing about members who gave up their kids to join… Socializing within the group was discouraged and there were no games, songs, public confessions, or rituals of any kind.” (Pg. 134-135)
They record, “‘I think everyone in this class wanted something more than this human world had to offer,’ one of the cult members said in her good-bye videotape.” (Pg. 212)
This book will be ‘must reading’ for anyone wanting to know about this cultic group.
December 7, 2018
Nice paperback. I learned the hard way, I was messing around New Age Mysticism and I almost lost my mind to these false light beings when I tampered with my third eye. When I opened my third eye, I could relate, I saw all these amazing shapeshifting bright beings for my awakening and things seemed to very bright at first but sadly it got worse and worse and when I found Enlightenment, I realize it was one Satanic trap to capture the person soul . I surrender to Jesus and got the bible and started to go to mass and service, things got lots better. Dealing with all these new age relgions is just one satanic trickery, astral projection/reincarnation/channeling watch out, it is all one trick to by Satan to capture your soul. Stick with Jesus and the Bible always.
May 20, 2024
Decent for a basic overview of the Heaven's Gate cult, but that's about it. The writing is atrocious sensationalist journalism, the editing is equally terrible (repetition of whole sentences, several contradictions), and the work is noticeably dated (especially the parts about the internet).
There's little debt of analysis, just lists of surface level presentations of those involved. 1,7 stars.
There's little debt of analysis, just lists of surface level presentations of those involved. 1,7 stars.
August 23, 2015
Not very well-written or insightful. Read it because the book was laying around and I vagely remember the story about that crazy cult which killed themselves as they believed in a spaceship behind the Hale-Bopp comet. Very tragic, of course, but to us youngsters back then, it was just riduculous, funny even. The book does tell the story, but tbh I found it boring. Maybe that's inevitable, since believing in anything even remotely like this is so alien (unintended pun) to me. On the upside, it was a very quick read, though, sadly perhaps, as forgettable as the group's own teachings.
September 11, 2009
Really this book is just a broad overview of the incident and the events surrounding it. There was no real connection with the subjects, partially because of the derisive terminology used for the cult (UFO loonies, computer geeks). It did not seem very objective or insightful. An interesting read, but still rather hollow.
September 6, 2009
I did not think this book was too bad. There is only one review about it on amazon which gives it 2 stars. I can understand where they are coming from but if you do not know anything about this case it is not a bad read. I want to learn more though but I do not think there is another book about this case.
Weird that such intelligent people kill themselves thinking they will be on a spaceship.
Weird that such intelligent people kill themselves thinking they will be on a spaceship.
January 21, 2016
A facinating insight into the cult suicides of Heaven's Gate. This is a really good book, and pretty thorough in its evaluation of the cult in a not too judgemental way. The best part was learning about the history of the cult and how it evolved. I read this book straight though without being distracted, just because it was so absorbing.
February 25, 2010
Really, really horrid writing. Mixed metaphors, lapses in common sense, deeply flawed logic, lack of continuity: you know those people who don't read? They write like this.
But that's exactly why I wanted to read this. The book equivalent of the recent "Transformers," or maybe "Troll 2."
But that's exactly why I wanted to read this. The book equivalent of the recent "Transformers," or maybe "Troll 2."
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews