The Heaven’s Gate Suicide

An Interview with the author

The Heaven’s Gate cult committed suicide near San Diego in the community of Rancho Santa Fe. They did so in the hopes of being snatched away in a space ship that was supposedly flying in the slip stream of the Hale-Bop comet. This was the largest mass suicide on American soil. Good News El Paso interviewed Tom Brown, the author of the new book entitled, "The Heaven’s Gate Suicide: Unlocking the answer to why it happened." The following is the interview.

GNEP: Your book is titled, The Heaven’s Gate Suicide: Unlocking the answer to why it happened. Give us a short answer, Why did it happen?

TB: In a short answer: Demons caused these people to kill themselves.

GNEP: Do you really believe demons caused this tragedy? Didn’t they simply kill themselves because they were psychologically confused?

TB: Well, you see, the Bible tells us that demons work in the mind. They work to put thoughts in the mind. So it is true that these people were psychologically confused, but that doesn’t tells us why they were confused. The Bible teaches us that they were confused because demons confused them.

In 1 Timothy 4:1 it says, "The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons." So we see from this Scripture that demons can deceive people and cause them to do the craziest things, such as they did with the Heaven’s Gate cult.

GNEP: Why would God allow such a tragedy to happened?

TB: This is the question that Larry King asked Pastor Benny Hinn on the day of the suicide. I love Pastor Benny’s answer. He told him, "God had nothing to do with this tragedy. Demons caused these people to kill themselves." He’s right. It’s time that Americans face the fact that the Bible is right. Demons are real.

We have to understand that there are evil spirits in the world that causes bad things to happen. God is good, and never causes tragedy. But the devil is bad.

The good news is that Jesus came to defeat the devil for us, so that we can experience a wonderful life, free from the devil’s works.

GNEP: Where did they get their name, The Heaven’s Gate?

TB: They undoubtedly got their name from Matthew 16:19. In that passage Jesus says, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Here Jesus is comparing the gates of hell with the gates of heaven. Hence, the term "Heaven’s Gate."

Unfortunately, they did not understand this passage. Like many religionists, they thought that this passage gave them the right to include or exclude people from heaven. By the way, they interpreted heaven to mean a physical and literal heaven, like a planet in the universe. But this passage was not saying that people can have the power to determine the eternal destiny of souls, but rather this Scripture was giving the true Church the power to bind and loose what is on earth. These keys work on the earth to bind the devil and loose angels. This passage has nothing to do with allowing people to go to heaven.

GNEP: Was Applewhite a Christian minister before he started his brand of religion?

TB: No. His father was a Presbyterian minister. Marshall desired to follow in the footsteps of his father, but he had problems with homosexuality. In fact, he left a teaching job at the University of Alabama amidst rumors that he had an affair with a male student.

He battled homosexuality nearly all of his early adult life. He even checked himself in a hospital in the early 1970’s, begging the doctor to cure him of homosexuality. It was at this hospital that he met Bonnie Nettles. She taught him the New Age religion. Together they started their own brand of religion.

GNEP: So you are saying that this group was not Christian?

TB: They were absolutely not Christian. This is what disturbs me about cults like this. Many people assume, because they use Christian lingo, that it makes them Christian. But this is simply not true.

Galatians 1:7-8 says, "...Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!"

And then in 2 Corinthians 11:4, Paul says, "For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough."

As you can see, not everyone who uses Christian lingo is really preaching the same gospel or the same Jesus. For example, this cult believed that God was simply an older member of the evolutionary level above human. They denied God as the Creator of the universe.

To them Jesus was only a man until an alien entity entered Him. According to them Jesus began, and I quote, "a metamorphic transition from human to level above human."

And concerning the Holy Spirit, they believed that He was simply, and I quote, "one of the crew members of the Kingdom of Heaven who are responsible for nurturing gardens." Evidently they believed that the Holy Spirit was a psychologist who was sent by aliens to nurture humanity. Can you believe it? They blasphemed the Holy Spirit. And according to Jesus, if someone blasphemes the Holy Spirit, he or she will not be forgiven in this age or the age to come.

GNEP: Our country stands for religious tolerance. Even though committing suicide seems a bit too much for most people, that was their choice. Aren’t you a little judgmental toward this group?

TB: No. Because I wrote this book not to judge them, but to show people that anyone can be deceived by the devil. By the way, they did not choose to kill themselves. They were deceived into doing it.

Let me explain. If someone came to your home to sell you a product, and he promised that the product would do certain things, and so you bought it, only to find out that the product did not perform the way the salesman promised. Let me ask you this question: Was it your choice to buy the product? Not really, because you bought it because you were told that it would do this or that. You were deceived into buying it. In our country you can sue the man and get your money back, because our country understands between choosing something and being deceived into something.

This is what happened to this cult. They killed themselves because Marshall Applewhite promised them that they would go up into a space ship that was supposed to be flying behind the Hale-Bop comet. He lied to them. They are not flying in a space ship right now. Instead, they are standing before the throne of God to give account of their evil action of suicide.

GNEP: Why did Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles call themselves Do and Ti?

TB: Do and Ti are names of the alien spirits that they said entered them. They said that two alien spirits came to live in them. At first, these spirits must have disturbed them because they called them Bo and Peep after the nursery rhyme of "Little Lost Sheep." They must have felt like little lost sheep, but after a while, these spirits convinced them that they were the shepherds for all the world.

So by their own admittance they were demon possessed. It’s not me that said that evil spirits came to live in them. They said that spirits came to live in them. Unfortunately, these spirits convinced them that they were the same kind of spirits that came to live in Jesus Christ. But they were wrong.

GNEP: So you believe that these people needed exorcism performed on them. Do you really believe that this would have helped?

TB: I really believe that exorcism is a neglected practice of the Church. Today, many in the Church want to sweep under the carpet this biblical practice of exorcism. But we need to practice it, but do it under the guidance of the Bible and the Holy Spirit.

If we go back to Marshall Applewhite’s battle with homosexuality, we can see that if his church would have practiced driving out spirits, then Marshall may have been freed from homosexuality. Instead, Marshall had to go to a psychiatrist for help. He should have been able to go to his church and ask for help.

We Christians have been given the power by Christ to drive out demons, according to Mark 16, verse 17. We should bring back to the Church, the practice of exorcism. I have practiced this since the beginning of my ministry, and have seen wonderful results.

I really believe that if Marshall’s church would have believed in the gifts of the Spirit including the gift to drive out spirits, that Marshall may never have been a cult leader, instead he may have been an outstanding minister of the gospel.

GNEP: Why do people become brainwashed by so many cult leaders?

TB: People want to know God. The Bible teaches us that there is a God-shaped void in each of us. So people are hungry to know God. It is man’s desire to know God that often causes him to accept what anyone says about God. The devil tries to bring a counterfeit. God is the genuine.

People become brainwashed because they don’t know the Bible. Knowing the Bible is the best protection against cult leaders. This is the problem with Americans. They know very little about the devil. Consequently, they are easily deceived by cults who claim to believe in the Bible.

GNEP: Do you think that there are going to be many more people joining strange cults like Heaven’s Gate?

TB: Yes. Unless, America returns back to its heritage of the Bible, I’m convinced that many more cults will pop up in America. If you think that the Heaven’s Gate cult was strange, you haven’t seen anything yet.

GNEP: What can we do to stop the avalanche of new cults?

TB: Christians are the only ones who have the power to stop the cults. First of all, the Christian church should start teaching their people the truth of the Bible. It’s time that she quit preaching tradition. Cults will point out the inconsistencies of Church teaching. They do this by pointing to doctrines that are man-made. There is so much man-made teaching in Christian circles. The churches need to stop teaching tradition and start teaching the pure Word of God.

Second of all, Christians must start living out the gospel, and not simply proclaim it. We need to cut out the hypocrisy. Often, hypocrisy causes people to join fanatical cults, because, at least to them, the cults are actually doing something, unlike so many

so-called Christians who just talk the talk. God said to Israel, "My name is blasphemed because of you." This has happened to us as well because God’s people are not living the way the Bible says that they should.

A third thing that we can do to stop the rise of cults, is to show the genuine power of God. So many people are looking for spiritual experiences. And the Bible tells us that we can have them. If people would experience God, then they won’t look for unbiblical experiences. Unfortunately, most churches don’t encourage people to experience God. But if you read in the Book of Acts, you’ll see a lot of spiritual experiences. What I’m basically saying is that the Church of Jesus Christ needs to embrace the Charismatic and Pentecostal movements.

GNEP: What can someone do who has a loved one involved in a cult?

TB: If someone has a loved one in a cult, like a son or daughter, or wife or husband, then he or she needs to ask why that person joined the cult. What was it at home that they did not find, that now they find in the cult? I’ve notice that if people do not find God at home, they will go somewhere else to find Him. You can’t expect your loved ones to come back home if there is nothing in the home that will fulfill them.

A person needs to find God before they ask their loved ones to get out of the cult. They must offer their loved ones more than what the cult is offering. In the Heaven’s Gate situation, nearly all the people who joined the cult lived in non-religious homes. No wonder they left their homes. They were looking for God. Unfortunately, they found a cult before they could find Spirit-filled churches.

Another thing that people can do for loved ones in cults is to pray for them. I don’t mean pray wimpy prayers, but they need to pray warfare prayers. They need to bind the devil from deceiving their loved ones. In my book I share how God taught me to pray for my grandpa. God told me to quit asking Him to save Grandpa, but instead to bind the devil from deceiving him. I did, and my grandfather got saved. I include in the back of my book a prayer that people can use to pray over their unsaved loved ones.