AHC: Make the Heaven's Gate Cult a much larger ordeal

[Daniwani]

In the early 70's, a cult called 'Heaven's Gate' was formed by Marshall Applewhite after a near death experience, as well as his Nurse, Bonnie Nettles, believing themselves to be 'the two'. The Cult combined UFO and Alien conspiracies, Sci-Fi, and the Christian Faith (particularly its mythos and the parts dealing with apocalypse), and believed the world was about to be 'recycled'. The Group famously committed mass suicide under Comet Hale-Bopp; whom Marshall believed was being fallowed by a space ship (piloted by Bonnie) that would take them to a new planet, perhaps the Kingdom of Heaven. The group died after it's 39 members 'left their earthly vessels' and 'teleported' to new ones.

Heres the site -
http://www.heavensgate.com/
Apparantly angels look like cliche Greys -
http://www.heavensgate.com/misc/member.htm
As well the Cult Initiation tape -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqSZhwu1Rwo

Crazy stuff huh? In any case, your challenge, if you choose to take it, is to make this group a much larger ordeal, as large as you can. Perhaps attracting many more members/nutbars, perhaps even evolving to something slightly more sane, and existing as another large, crazy conspiracy group? Or ending in a similarly shocking and Bizarre manner. How would such a thing effect the media world perhaps?

If this is sketchy or against the rules, please let me know, and sorry in advance.

 

[nooblet]

The Heaven's Gate cult might have had some crazy ideas but its' adherents were as far as I know law-abiding and mostly benign.

These groups usually stay small because they generally don't proselytize beyond posting their manifesto and finding someone lonely and disenchanted with their life... a lot of these people just want to believe in something. For this purpose, the more outlandish the beliefs of the cult, the more likely it is to find adherents who are looking for a radical departure from mainstream society. Trying to mainstream it for a general audience would defeat the point.

 

[Admiral Halsey]

Is that the actual website for the cult? Who's keeping that things domain from expiring?

 

[Lateknight]

The leader declared himself to be Jesus way to early for it anything more a tiny fringe thing you need to have a lot more people already hooked if want to get away doing that and saying popular.