Cults In Jonestown And Heaven's Gate

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Some say that cults are all religious and work together, in fact the definition of a cult is “a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object”, yet this can vary. Cults are not all religious or trying to reach a spiritual goal and in a lot of cases it is mostly all about one goal that is completely derived off his followers. Most cult leaders are so infatuated with their goals that they truly believe the psychological damage they are causing is good for the world (Cults). As seen in Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate, cults tend to use psychological skills to torment, manipulate and brainwash their members to grow stronger and reach the leader’s ultimate goal. It was the seventies and all anyone was looking …show more content…

It was in the eighties and people would believe anything they heard, including aliens. After a couple mishaps with his jobs and previous lovers, Applewhite found himself looking for more than earth was offering him. He felt that God was trying to send him a message of some sort. Marshall believed that he needed to give up all sexuality and devote his body and mind to the mission god was giving him, and once he met Bonnie who had all the same beliefs as him he knew he had to listen to God. Bonnie and Marshall thought that they were sent to each other to give up their bodies and have their souls travel to the next level where a spaceship would take them to heaven and they would be given a new body (Heaven’s Gate, Blach). After a couple years they started to speak out and got over one hundred followers who believed they were here to be sent to the next level. Although after some realization of what was really at stake here, the followers dropped to about twenty where they were taking astronaut classes everyday and almost forbidden to see their families. In the early nineties some fear was drawn about lucifer coming for them and ultimately leading in the largest mass suicide on american soil where they placed plastic bag over their heads and were sent to the other world (Heaven’s Gate,

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