Talk:Heaven's Gate (religious group)/Archive 2

Money in Pocket
The article states the members who were found dead each had a five-dollar bill and three quarters on them, "said to be for interplanetary toll." The next citation, number 19, actually says the money was there due to "a habit they had developed whenever they went out so they would always have cab fare or change for the phone." An April 14, 1997 Newsweek interview with Rio DiAngelo/Richard Ford said the money was actually a response to members being harassed for vagrancy. I know nothing about Heaven's Gate but I just wanted to point this out in case someone wants to look into it and figure out what's true. 70.104.135.103 (talk) 23:28, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Away Team Release Date
The linked Article of the game Away Team lists the release date as being 2001. These suicides occurred in 1997. I'm not familiar with Star Trek canon, so maybe Away Team refers to some other stories within that universe, but as a layman, I can see no indication of that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.176.6.8 (talk) 10:55, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Pointed it to the correct page describing the term and not the game. Ayecee (talk) 07:59, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Discovery of the bodies
The article has nothing about how the police discovered the bodies, or what led them to go to the house. Is there any published information on that?  howcheng  {chat} 23:01, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes I am sure there is I couldnt tell you off the top of my head. If I recall correctly a mail man did after attempted delivery to the group or something equally mundane accidental discovery. The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 23:54, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * According to a webpage linked from this article, a member of the cult who was instructed to stay behind received a message in the mail about the suicide (presumably sent before the event by one of the members) and made the discovery. 68.146.72.113 (talk) 18:56, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Page moves

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 17:47, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Heaven& → ??? – The article had been at "Heaven's Gate (religious group)" for a long time. an editor just moved it to "Heaven's Gate (suicide cult)" (though he forgot to move the talk page). The lead says that the group was a "UFO cult". If that's correct, then I propose moving to to "Heaven's Gate (UFO cult)". Any thoughts?  Will Beback   talk    23:55, 23 April 2011 (UTC)


 * "Be bold" is one thing - but renaming pages in such a clearly controversial manner demands discussion here. Thanks for starting one!  I agree with the original title. SteveBaker (talk) 07:49, 24 April 2011 (UTC)


 * They fancied themself a religious group, so that's a reasonable thing to call them. "Cult" is a built-in slam. I recall some politican once referring to the Roman Catholic Church as a "cult". Some think Mormonism is a "cult". But you wouldn't label the articles that way. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:07, 24 April 2011 (UTC)


 * The original title isn't bad. I notice that UFO cult actually redirects to UFO religion. Any thoughts about using that?   Will Beback    talk    08:15, 24 April 2011 (UTC)


 * If the article is factually correct, then UFO religion is a valid term. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:20, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It's a valid term - but it's more precise than we need in a dab. WP:PRECISE tells us to use the broadest terms. If "(UFO religion)" is OK - then "(religion)" is better unless there is another religion with that name. SteveBaker (talk) 12:49, 26 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Let's keep talking about it, but in the meantime I'll move it back to it's old name.   Will Beback    talk    08:31, 24 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment The changing of "UFO Religion" to "UFO cult" by drive bys occurs every so often. I traditionally roll it back as "good faith edit" and move along as to the title. I tried under my previous account to move it "new religious movement" and got in move war (which was rather early in my wiki-time I had no idea of the concept) and ultimately got moved to the current title. I personally Support Heaven's Gate (UFO religion) or Heaven's Gate (new religious movement) as both are academic NPOV labels. The term Suicide Cult has pejorative sense to it and should not be the title. Moving it has been on my to do list for awhile but ultimately haven't gotten around to it and this seem a good as time as any to discuss it. The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 23:51, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * As I said to Baseball Bugs - if "(UFO religion)" is OK - then "(religion)" is better (per WP:PRECISE) - and if "(new religious movement)" is OK - then "(religious movement)" is better...unless there is an old religious movement with the same name. SteveBaker (talk) 12:49, 26 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Support a change to "Heaven's Gate (UFO religion)". The word "cult" is a NPoV and useful term in sociology, and it happens to fit this group very well. Since this group no longer exists, I doubt that using "cult" would raise many hackles. However, using the term "cult" in the title would needlessly reinforce the term's current negative connation in popular usage. &bull; Astynax talk 07:36, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Oppose page move: The phrase in parentheses in the title of the article is there for disambiguation purposes only - it is not there to convey facts about the subject. WP:PRECISE says:


 * When additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article title from other uses of the topic name, over-precision should be avoided. Be precise, but only as precise as necessary. For example, it would be inappropriate to title an article "United States Apollo program (1961–75)" over Apollo program (given that the year range refers to the whole of the program, not a portion of it); or "Queen (London, England rock band)" over Queen (band). Remember that concise titles are generally preferred.

That's the key thing here...over-precision should be avoided.

Ideally, the article could simply be called "Heaven's Gate" - but we need a dab. The parenthetical isn't there to convey information about the group - we have an entire article for doing that. It's there purely to avoid confusion with: Heaven's Gate (film), Heaven's Gate (band), Heaven's Gate (UFO album), Heaven's Gate (game), etc. We don't say "Heaven's Gate (1980 film)" or even "Heaven's Gate (western film)" unless there are two films of that title that we need to dab. We do say "Heaven's Gate (UFO album)" because there are several other musical usages and in that case we really do need to keep them separate by including the name of the band in the dab parenthetical.

If there were another religious group called "Heaven's Gate" - then I'd strongly agree with the need to be a bit more specific here. But until/unless that happens, we need the broadest possible term in order that people who might know roughly what they are looking for will find the article. Once they arrive here then we may present fair, unbiassed, NPOV writing that tells all about the UFO connection, the cult issue, the suicide pact, etc. The dab on the article name needs to be broad and relatively unspecific. I think the "(religious group)" option is by far the best choice for doing that.

It's irrelevant to this discussion whether these people were a cult or whether they worshipped UFO's or whether they had a suicide pact. This is a matter of what makes the article easiest to find in a world where the phrase "Heaven's Gate" has a dozen different connotations.

Hence, I oppose efforts to rename this page simply to make some kind of point about what they did. Let's deal with that in the article itself where we have the space to provide a fully referenced, nuanced discussion.

SteveBaker (talk) 12:31, 26 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Per Resident Anthropologist, I would support Heaven's Gate (UFO religion) or Heaven's Gate (new religious movement) as encyclopedic article titles. -- JN 466  04:03, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Please read WP:PRECISE - it very clearly says that you're wrong. If (UFO religion) is good - then just (religion) is better.  If (new religious movement) is OK - then (religious movement) is better.  Please just read the guideline - this is not a vague, fuzzy guideline - it is extremely clear about what is required of us here. SteveBaker (talk) 14:03, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * This discussion arose in the context of an editor having changed the article title to "Heaven's Gate (suicide cult)". I agree the original title with "religious group", which has since been restored, is fine. -- JN 466  04:46, 28 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose The title is correct, has been stable for some time, does not need any explanation and accurately describes the topic. The Heaven's Gate group was a new-religion cult. Chaosdruid (talk) 20:25, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

proposed changes needed,this sentence is inaccurate statement and makes no sense
I dont want to change it only to have someone change it back, so im discussing it first. but the line I pasted below makes no sense. the phrase,"and that the only chance to survive" implies survival of the body and of physical life. obviously if one kills themselves its contrary to the term "survival", and obviously they knew that much. what it needs to say is something like this, "and that their only chance to survive **spiritually** and make it to **heaven**, was to leave the earth immediatly(via the space 'vessel' that had come nearby).

this is the part that needs to be changed below: " Belief system:Heaven's Gate members believed that the planet Earth was about to be recycled (wiped clean, renewed, refurbished and rejuvenated), and that the only chance to survive was to leave it immediately. " —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gawdsmak (talk • contribs) 20:47, 2 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It's not clear that they believed that their survival would only be spiritual - I kinda got the impression that they expected their bodies to be physically reconstituted on the alien craft. But with crazies like this, it's not clear that they thought it through all that carefully anyway. SteveBaker (talk) 01:49, 3 May 2011 (UTC)


 * "Crazies like this ..." can you prove they weren't correct, that there was not an extra-terestrial spaceship behind Hale-Bopp, and that they did not achieve a higher plane of existence ? Just wondering :) 203.160.86.201 (talk) 04:43, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

New source
A scholarly anthology on Heaven's Gate has just been published: ''Heaven's Gate. Postmodernity and Popular Culture in a Suicide Group.'' Ashgate, June 2011, 228 pages, ISBN 978-0-7546-6374-4. Edited by George D. Chryssides, University of Birmingham, UK. . -- JN 466  21:41, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Partial quote
Where do the opening quotation marks of the following go? There aren't any.

Another New Age belief that Applewhite and Nettles adopted was “the ancient astronaut" hypothesis. The term ‘ancient astronauts’ is used to refer to various forms of the concept that ufonauts visited our planet in the distant past.” (Lewis, 2001, p.16) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.167.150.33 (talk) 22:42, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Unverifiable citations
In Belief system, I tried to reformat the citations but could not find the sources in the bibliography or notes.  Miniapolis  ( talk ) 19:17, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Information about the website
I think a section about the cult's official website should be added to the article. Despite the fact that 39 members committed suicide in 1997, the Telah Foundation has annually renewed the server and domain name for the Heaven's Gate website. The website (http://www.heavensgate.com) is a primary source that readers can consult if they wish to learn more about the cult and its beliefs. Mekalbach16 (talk) 00:02, 17 September 2012 (UTC)


 * And continuous maintenance of the website was documented by this article from 2014. Pavel Vozenilek (talk) 18:51, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Categorization of Article
As I recall, much of this came from Time Magazine. I don't have the citation at hand, so I have not put any of it into the article:

−	One could quibble with their gullibility and strange sense of priorities. −	a) they had been told that the space ship was going to be visible in the tail of the comet; −	b) they purchased a Meade Cassegrain telescope on their American Express Card; −	c) they could not observe the space ship, so they concluded that it was "defective", but the end of the world was still on; −	d) they returned the telescope to their retailer for a credit on their American Express bill (not unlike a lot of followers of other end of the worlders who sell their possessions -- "you can't take it with you" but the cash will endure? The world will end, but your American Express bill is forever?; −	e) they decided to commit mass suicide because the end of the world was nigh. 7&amp;6=thirteen (☎) 13:33, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

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Comment above from another user manually restored by Cramyourspam (talk) 06:42, 23 February 2017 (UTC) after seeing it was deleted for no reason and replaced with the vulgarity-laced POV rant below from (talk). This note and restoration by Cramyourspam (talk) 06:42, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

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Why the fuck is this shit mentioned as a religious group when it is a goddamn cult? --189.215.4.84 (talk) 15:59, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Because cults are groups composed of people with shared religious beliefs. Don't like it? Then you're clearly not the kind of person that should be attempting to contribute to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is concerned with facts, not foul-mouthed opinion. 82.32.160.97 (talk) 12:46, 21 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Actually, profanity is irrelevant to the fact vs. opinion statement. There are plenty of legitimate wikipedia entries containing profanities. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.22.25.154 (talk) 04:14, 20 May 2014 (UTC)


 * If this is not a cult, then there is no cult! Also, I would like to mention that it is NEVER too late to ask for help. There can be no justification to harm any human being, not even yourself. Be the smart one. Talk.70.26.31.219 (talk) 02:55, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

70.26.31.219 (talk) 02:53, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Are you trying to distinguish between religious groups and cults? What are the criteria you suggest? Dimadick (talk) 13:35, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Lifton's. Simple question with easy answer: read Singer/Lalich or Hassan. Those books are easy to find. No need to give any reference.

Totalitarism: "Leader", plus "harm" plus "doctrine"

Cult: "Leader", plus "doctrine" plus "loaded language" plus "sense of uniqueness" plus "public confessions" plus "hierarchy system" plus "two systems of ethics (one for members and one for non members)" plus "quest for purity"

How to (thought) reform someone: 1 - Create a sense of selflessness by removing any self esteem. 2 - Rebuild a new controled personality using covert manipulations.

Controling the personality:

1 control the Behavior 2 control the Information 3 control the Thoughts 4 control the Environment.

70.26.31.219 (talk) 04:06, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Incomprehensible sentence
"The members of the group added to the first names they adopted in lieu of their original given names, which defines "children of the Next Level." "

What does this mean? Something is missing from this sentence. 120.18.138.6 (talk) 01:51, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Some facts do not match the citations
One or more facts do not match the citation provided — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uncle uncle uncle (talk • contribs) 22:25, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Some examples would be helpful. I'll expand on that: Without any hint of where you think the problem is, no one is going to do a complete recheck of the article. (And if a hardy soul did do that, there's no guarantee they'd spot what you've spotted and agree with you.) What will happen is that tag will sit on the article for months or years until someone says "What the heck is this?", looks at the Talk page, finds nothing of substance, and deletes the tag. I'll assume good faith and leave it for now, but I've added a WTHIT? entry to my calendar in a week. AndroidCat (talk) 15:57, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I've removed the tag for now pending something specific. As is, it just isn't helpful for readers or editors. For readers, it gives no indication of where they should be careful. For editors, it gives no place to start for fixing, and no place to end either. A little hint with an inline tag like or  would be useful. A general Something's Not Right Somewhere! isn't. AndroidCat (talk) 05:04, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Website's been replaced.
Once I went there my anti-virus went crazy blocking it. It's now redirected to another site: something "red kicks". Didn't want to overstay my welcome in fear that I may get infected. 108.14.117.201 (talk) 16:08, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Merging History and Media coverage prior to suicide
Both sections reference the Jacques Vallée book, and pertain to the organization's history. I propose merging these into a single "History" section. Thoughts? WikkanWitch (talk) 21:26, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Saturn
Is that a picture of saturn on their logo? - Crayzee Dawg 101 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.0.97.154 (talk) 15:12, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Street in Missoua, MT
Recommend we remove the mention of the residential street in Missoula, as there's evidence in OpenStreetMap that this street existed at least as early as 2007. BalooUriza (talk) 16:50, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

New information
I just heard the Skepticality episode Drop a Penny on the Gate (http://www.skepticality.com/drop-penny-gate) which featured the sister of a HG member who killed himself, author Deborah Simpson. She discussed her book “Closing The Gate” which discusses her personal tragedy and provides new info on the cult. Noteworthy is her assertion that there were additional, related, suicides at the same time as the main Heaven’s Gate California event (perhaps many), and her brother's was one - but this was kept out of the news to prevent copycats. She also provides info on the current activities of the survivors. Both this podcast and the book would provide good cited additions to the page! RobP (talk) 15:22, 22 September 2016 (UTC) RobP (talk) 18:47, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

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