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H eavengate
It’s our people
who make the difference.
The current ruckus surrounding the danger of cults
ignores the fact that the United States was founded by cultists
T
by Patricia Nell Warren
s the nation goes into a cult panic over
the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide, I am
amazed how fast some people forget
our long national coziness with cults.
Unkind things about cults are be­
ing said or implied by newspeople, commentators
and “cult experts.” It seems that cults are scary.
Cults are un-Christian. Cults are New Age. Cults
are dangerous. Public figures rush to be first to
call loudly for “something to be done about cults.”
On one talk show, a distinguished guest sug­
gested that the Constitution be amended “to keep
this kind of thing from happening.”
In a word, Heaven’s Gate is being turned into
Heavengate.
I notice that many “cult experts” on the news
have religious-right affiliations. Yes, the reli­
gious right is planning to have a field day with
Heaven’s Gate. New Agers are high on its hit list.
Now the religious right sees its big chance: to use
39 deaths as an excuse to blacken a movement
with hundreds of thousands of adherents. Accord-
ingtoCNN and Washington Post stories, Heaven’s
Gate leader Marshall Applewhite was homosexual.
The religious right will probably twist this fact
into one more “proof’ that cults are bad.
Hmm. Surely saner minds remember the Jesus
freaks of the ’70s? In those days, some counter­
cult activists nabbed minors out of extremist
Christian groups and returned them to their par­
ents for “de-programming.” Some of today’s re­
ligious-right leaders were considered Jesus freaks
when they were young. So their memory about
“cults” is conveniently short.
Today the word “cult” has an eerie connota­
tion that doesn’t fit the more benign groups. Even
some benign cults center on an obsessive control
by the group’s leader, and obsessive obedience by
the members. But this kind of mind control isn’t
limited to marginalized little groups. It can be
found in the shadow of every religion and spiri­
tual system in the world, including mainstream
Christianity.
In marketing its anti-cult line to the public, the
religious right will trade on many people’s quea­
siness about suicide. As a rule, religious-right cult
groups don’t preach violence against the self. But
some preach violence against others. Some war
on people of color. Others war on gay people. Still
A
others war on abortion, tree-huggers or the fed­
eral government. In my opinion, any religious-
right group that operates on that same obsessive
control of others is deserving of the same media
splash and investigative scrutiny as Heaven’s
Gate.
The truth is, “cults” have always been part of
the U.S. scene. Little groups of believers who
emigrated here—Quakers, Jews, Congregation-
alists, Anabaptists, Pilgrims, Masons— were per­
secuted in Europe as “scary cults.” That’s why
they fled to the United States! Later came Mor­
mons, Trancendentalists, Mennonites, Hutterites,
Christian Scientists, the Ghost Dance, to name a
few—all considered very dangerous by the more
intolerant descendants of our cultish founders.
Cults are a star-spangled part of the American
tradition.
Protestants even considered Catholics dan­
gerous when the latter emigrated here in force in
the 1800s. Today some Protestants still have fits
over Catholic “idol worship.” Catholics them­
selves even use the word “cult,” as in “cult of
Mary.” But I don’t see Protestants trying to amend
the Constitution so that Catholic cultism can be
“prevented.”
Last but not least, the anti-cult script calls for
cyberspace to be vilified as a hotbed of cults.
“Spiritual predators” are said to be joining sexual
predators in the hunt for children. Fiddle-dee-dee.
In a nation founded on culthood, the new cults
never had a problem recruiting, whether it was by
radio, phone, telegraph or Pony Express. Today’s
recruitment includes television evangelists—
whose financial and “healing” practices have
been questioned—proving that controllers don’t
need the Internet to find people who want to be
told what to think.
How odd to blame the Internet, when televi­
sion and radio news coverage have given Heaven’s
Gate a billion dollars’ worth of free publicity in
the past few days.
So before we go off the deep end—launching
witch hunts and passing a bunch of anti-cult
laws—let’s make sure we don’t shoot ourselves
in our cultish foot.
Deborah Betron
CRB. GRI
Jude Watson, GRI
John Terrill. GRI
Chris Bonner. GRI
Bill Galvin
Broker
Associate Broker
Associate Broker
Associate Broker
Broker/President
Linda Welch, GRI
Scott Bottaro. GRI
laurie SantaMaria
Helen Ford
Donald Falk. GR1
Robin Grimm
(jerry Federici). GRI
Val Thorpe-Galvin. GRI
Associate Broker
Jim Bean
Û.M
Carolyn MacMurray
Assi to.He Bn >ker
Cathy Martine
Janelle Miller
Julie Yoho
Gary Sadleir
Chris Hardy
Kathy Tysinger
Robert Amhes
Kathleen Ira
Anita Trudeau
Greg Washington
Associate Broker
Patricia Nell Warren is author o/The Front
Runner and other books.
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