Under The Microscope:

1. Under The Microscope: • Pupils to understand what we mean by World Rejecting. • Pupils to explore Heaven’s Gate as an example of a World Rejecting NRM. • Pupils to consider what factors cause a group to go to such lengths. Heaven’s Gate

2. Key Features of NRMs Classed as ‘World Rejecting’: • Had Charismatic [impressive, influential] leader. • Encourage members to cut all ties with family and friends. • Members often live in isolation from everyone outside the group. • Believe that the world and society are bad or ‘evil’ and should be avoided or rejected completely. • Members of the group commit suicide together. Which of the facts above seems most unusual and why?

3. Read facts sheet

4. Aliens? How likely is it that aliens exist in your view?

5. Marshall Herff Applewhite Also Known As: Bo, Do and one of the Two Witnesses His co-founder, Bonnie Lu Nettles (aka "Peep" and "Ti") died in 1985 The Founder…

6. How to get there! Bo and Peep came to believe that they were extraterrestrials who offered humans yet another chance to move to a higher evolutionary level. • The method of transportation to this Kingdom was a spacecraft. • In order to get a "boarding pass" to this higher level they had to lead a disciplined life which would bring about a bodily metamorphosis they likened to the transformation from a caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly. Called “Human Individual Metamorphosis” (HIM), this process would literally transform human physiology.

7. To Achieve HIM… Group Rules • Celibacy [no sex please] • Abstinence from drugs and alcohol. • Limited and controlled contact with the outside world. • Reduction of "human-level" interpersonal attachments within the group. • Name Change • Cutting of one's hair • Disposal of one's possessions Consequences and Sequels C&S: Consider the immediate and long-term consequences of belonging to a group and following these rules. What would happen? How would your life and world view change?

8. Movie of Marshall Applewhite giving his views on the world. http://www.cnn.com/US/9703/28/mass.suicide/applewhite.41.mov Bearing in mind how the group’s leader views the future of the world, how might the Comet Hale-Bopp been significant to the group?

9. The Outcome… • They believed that they were students and that their deaths would allow them to participate in a higher level of human evolution. • For them, the coming of Comet Hale-Bopp signalled that their student days were over, and a heavenly space-craft was positioned behind the comet waiting to take them to the next level. • Do's news that he would soon die of cancer (a claim which autopsy results proved was untrue) may have prompted the group to act in case their second teacher and guide left without them.

10. A Calm Demise… Please look away if you find this upsetting or ask to leave the room. CNN footage of the suicide scene: http://www.cnn.com/US/9703/28/mass.suicide/house.33.mov This has been removed from the internet. What you see is a dormitory with bunk beds. And on the bunk beds are the bodies of the victims covered with a jacket. They all have black nike trainers on. They are all dead, obviously. It is very silent. Various FBI members walk around the rooms, probably looking for any evidence of what happened. Everything is neat and tidy. Each bed has a boy on it. It’s very strange.

11. Suicide OPV Do you think the members of Heaven’s Gate considered their action as suicide? Explain your answer in detail.