In the early 1970s Marshall Applewhite and his wife Bonnie Nettles founded Heaven’s gate. After surviving a heart attack he claimed that he had a near death experience. With this he claimed to believe that he and his wife were the two witnesses spoken in the Book of Revelation in the Bible. After a brief and unsuccessful attempt in opening a book store the two decided to travel around the US and giving talks about the system they had introduced. The two had combined Christian doctrine with the concepts of evolutionary advancement and element of science fiction, particular to travel to other dimensions. The concept of walk-ins aided Applewhite and Nettles in personally starting from clean slates. They were no longer the people they had been …show more content…
They believed that when they die they would ‘’turn against the next level it is being offered’’ and believe that the bodies were only vessels meant to help them on their journey. They believed that to be eligible for membership in the Next Level, they would have to shed every attachment to the planet. This meant that all members must give up all human-like characteristics, such as their family, friends, sexuality, individuality, jobs, money, and possessions. These basic beliefs of the group stayed generally consistent over the years however, the details of their ideology were flexible enough to undergo modification over time. Examples of the group's adding or slightly changing their beliefs over time include modifying the way one can enter the Next Level, changing the way they described themselves, placing more importance on the idea of Satan, and adding several other New Age concepts. However, after the notion of walk-ins became popular within the New Age subculture this caused the Two to change their tune and began describing themselves as extra-terrestrial walk-ins. The idea of walk-ins is very similar to the concept of being possessed by spirits. A walk-in can be defined as an entity who occupies a body that has been vacated by its original soul and with this Heaven's Gate came to believe that they are an extra-terrestrial …show more content…
The members devoid many indulgences and the group were close and everything was shared. The group even earned revenues by offering professional website development for clients. This was all under the name Higher