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Full Description
2015 Best Book Award from the Communal Studies Association
The captivating story of the people of Heaven's Gate, a religious group focused on transcending humanity and the Earth, and seeking salvation in the literal heavens on board a UFO
In March 1997, thirty-nine people in Rancho Santa Fe, California, ritually terminated their lives. To outsiders, it was a mass suicide. To insiders, it was a graduation. This act was the culmination of over two decades of spiritual and social development for the members of Heaven's Gate.
In this fascinating overview, Benjamin Zeller not only explores the question of why the members of Heaven's Gate committed ritual suicides, but interrogates the origin and evolution of the religion, its appeal, and its practices. By tracking the development of the history, social structure, and worldview of Heaven's Gate, Zeller draws out the ways in which the movement was both a reflection and a microcosm of larger American culture. The group emerged out of engagement with Evangelical Christianity, the New Age movement, science fiction and UFOs, and conspiracy theories, and it evolved in response to the religious quests of baby boomers, new religions of the counterculture, and the narcissistic pessimism of the 1990s. Thus, Heaven's Gate not only reflects the context of its environment, but also reveals how those forces interacted in the form of a single religious body.
In the only book-length study of Heaven's Gate, Zeller traces the roots of the movement, examines its beliefs and practices, and tells the captivating story of its people.
Contents
Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Part I Science and the Unification Church Introduction 21 1 Science and the Foundation of Unificationism 25 2 Science and the American Unification Church 46 Part I I Science and the Hare Kri shna Movement Introduction 69 3 Science and the Foundation of the Hare Krishnas 73 4 Science and the Expansion of ISKCON 92 Part I I I Science and Heaven's Gate Introduction 117 5 Science and the Foundation of Heaven's Gate 121 6 Science and the End of Heaven's Gate 142 Conclusion 163 Notes 173 Works Cited 199 Index 221 About the Author 227
