Experiment 01: 02: Bonnie Nettles

Bonnie Lu Nettles Bonnie Lu Trousdale Ti, Peep, Pig Co-founder of the cult Heaven’s Gates August 29,1927 F Brown June 19, 1958 Cancer Marshall Applewhite

- Former Nurse - Died of Cancer, refused western treatment - Texas born and raised - Marriage took a turn when to Nettles came to believe that a 19th-century monk named Brother Francis frequently spoke with her and gave her instructions.

- saw herself as one of the two witnesses mentione in Revelations in the Bible and also as “the heavenly father” - They developed a perspective that interpreted biblical passages in light of contemporary thought about extraterrestrial contact.

- Believed that Jesus had ascended to heaven (the Level above Human, or T.E.L.A.H.) in a spacecraft

BACKGROUND

Charged with credit card fraud in 1974.

CRIMINAL HISTORY:

DOB: Gender: Eyes: DOD: COD: Associates:

Name: Birth Name: Alias: Known For:

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Nettles Background

04

Nettles and Applewhite

05

Heaven’s Gate Founding

06

Core Beliefs

07

Aliases and Code

08

Groups Beginnings

10

Medical History and Death

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Heaven’s Gate Post Nettle’s Death

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Author’s Analysis

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3

Index

Nettle’s Background

Bonnie Nettles’s Background

Bonnie Nettles was born and raised in Houston, Texas, into a Baptist family. As an adult, she moved away from the religion. After becoming a registered nurse in 1948, she married businessman Joseph Segal Nettles in December 1949, with whom she had four children.

Their marriage remained mostly stable until 1972, at which time she began attempting to contact deceased spirits by conducting regular seances and came to believe that a 19th-century monk named Brother Francis frequently spoke with her and gave her instructions. In February 1966 joined the Houston Lodge of the Theosophical Society in America. She also attended a group centered upon channeling various noncorporeal entities.

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Nettles visited multiple fortunetellers who told her she was to soon meet a mysterious man. The descriptions were fairly close to Applewhite’s appearance.

Nettles in Middle School, year unspecified

Nettles in High School, year unspecified

Nettles and Applewhite

Bonnie Nettles’s And Marshall Applewhite

Nettles met Marshall Applewhite in March 1972. Nettles agreed to perform an astrological reading for Applewhite. They had an almost instantaneous “spiritual” connection; Applewhite decided that Nettles was “to be the sage, the speaker.”

Nettles had a strong knowledge of the Bible as well as an interest in more unusual spiritual matters.

They would later decide that they were “The Two” mentioned in the Book of Revelation and that they were on an important spiritual mission.

Heaven’s Gate was founded in 1973. During the groups founding Nettles’ three youngest children were left to remain with their father. Her oldest daughter, Terrie, then aged 20, fended for herself.

Nettles and Applegate in 1974

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After meeting, Applewhite and Nettles spent months on the road, wandering around the country. Soon they became convinced that they were the two “endtime” witnesses mention in Revelation 11.

Founding

Heaven’s Gate Founding

Nettles and Marshall Applewhite founded Heaven’s Gate as equals.

Nettles ran the group while Applewhite was the public face of the group. Nettles claimed to have communicated with aliens about the Next Level and told Applewhite to tell their followers.

By 1976, Applewhite recognized Nettles as higher up on the level of command than he was.

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Many events passed in creation of the Heaven’s Gate group and the formation of its core members, with Nettles continuing to act as the interpreter of signs and the mystic of the group.

Nettles and Applegate 1981

Nettles and Applegate 1976

Core Beliefs

Core Beliefs

Earth is going to be recycled and wiped clean to restart.

On The Next Level all beings would nourish themselves by absorbThe only way to avoid this was ing sunlight, like plants and to leave Earth itself. do not have sex, eat, or die.

Human bodies are simply vessels to help you get through your journey to The Next Level.

To make it to The Next Level humans had to rid themselves of all “mammal” things such as sexuality, individualism, jobs, money, and all personal possessions.

Aliens contaminated the human race by leading humans to believe that they were God and that all perceptions of God were a lie to stop the human race from evolving further.

These aliens used holograms to perform miracles such as walking on water.

Aliens planted the seeds of humanity millions of years ago and were coming to collect only the greatest products of that seed: The Heaven’s Gate members.

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Did not agree with suicide but that suicide was turning against “The Next Level” and Heaven’s Gate when its being offered to you.

Aliases and Code

Aliases and Code

Applewhite and Nettles went by the collective of “The Two”, as well as the singular names “Bo” and “Peep” ,“Do” and “Ti”, and “Guinea” and “Pig” at different points in time.

Nettles went by Shelly West.

All members had to add “-ody” to the ends of their chosen names. As in “Mark-ody” or “Carol-ody”

Nettles and Applegate in the mid 1980s.

They frequently reffered to bodies as “vehicles” They and their followers were “walk-ins” which are alien beings that possess human bodies or “vessels” They refer to “birthing” as incarcerating

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Nettles in 1974

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Heavens Gate Poster from 1975

Groups Beginnings

Groups Beginnings

In 1975 they held gatherings in California and Oregon that attracted their initial followers.

Those who attached themselves to “The Two” dropped out of society and prepared for the “transition” to a new life on a spaceship.

When the expected transition did not occur, the group settled in Texas and lived a quiet communal existence practicing disciplines that they believed would prepare them for the eventual movement to a “higher level” of existence.

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The group had few contacts with outsiders until 1994, post Bonnies death.

Heavens Gate Pamphlet from 1977

In 1983, she had to have an eye removed due to cancer. Her doctor informed her that the disease was already spreading through the rest of her body.

Medical History and Death

Medical History and Death

Nettles stated that the doctor was ignorant and believed, along with Applewhite, that she could not die, as they had to ascend together.

The cancer continued to worsen, moving to her liver.

Nettles died on June 19, 1985, at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas. While there as a patient, she used the pseudonym Shelly West.

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Nettles in 1970. A hospital faculty ID photo from when she was employed as a nurse.

Heaven’s Gate post Nettles Death

Heaven’s Gate Post Nettles Death

Applewhite convinced the rest of the group that Nettles’ “broken-down vehicle was left behind”. He had her body cremated and her ashes were then spread upon a lake somewhere in Texas.

Applewhite explained to the group that Nettles had left because her work was done on this level but that he himself still had more that he had to do. Applewhite also said that Nettles would continue to help them from the Next Level.

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Scholars have viewed the death of Nettles as a turning point in the history of the cult. It caused the theology to shift from a belief that they would physically ascend to heaven while alive aboard a UFO to viewing the body as merely a “vehicle” for the soul which would be discarded upon entering heaven, which would culminate in the group’s mass suicide in 1997.

Nettles and Applewhite in 1982.

Heavens Gate Logo

When Hale-Bopp came 12 years later, Applewhite realized that with it would come Nettles’ return and the group’s time to leave Earth.

Finally, on March 19 and 20th, 39 people cast off their human body to reach the stars. The beliefs of Heaven’s Gate would come about with a shared delusion, the cherry picking of the bible and a group of religious strays, strengthen with the cognitive dissonance caused by a founder’s death, and then end with the coming of a magnificent comet.

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Applewhite during a tv advertisement 1985

Analysis

Authors Analysis Psychiatrists describe a cognitive dissonance that occured in the group after Nettles died in 1985.

Before Nettles’ death, the group believed their bodies would leave with them to outer space, yet hers didn’t, even though she was already supposed to have been a part of the Next Level.

In order for this to have not refuted the cult’s beliefs, a couple factors had to be present: First, the members had to have held these ideas really strongly, and have behavioral consequences. By this point, longtime members had changed the behavior and undergone activities to “limit human thoughts,” to prepare for their ascension.

Second, they took drastic actions that are difficult to undo. Many had moved, cut off their families, and some men even castrated themselves – including Applewhite – to adhere to the strict lifestyle that their ability to ascend relied on.

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Third and fourth, the death absolutely refuted the belief, and the group members recognized that Nettles’ body didn’t ascend.

Lastly, the members needed to have social support, which they found in the other members of the cult and

most importantly, Applewhite.

They came to the conclusion that the Nettle’s consciousness left her body when she died, and her ascended self was actually piloting a spaceship to eventually deliver the other members to their ascension. This would further their idea that they had to cast off all aspects of humanity in order to ascend, including their own bodies.

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Sources Cusack, Carole (3 January 2018).

“The Family”. World Religions and Spirituality Project. Retrieved 14 June 2019.

“Britain alleged Australian sect leader now on UK farm”. The Canberra Times. 61 (18, 954).

Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 26 August 1987. p.

5. Retrieved 14 June 2019 – via National Library of Australia.

Hope, Tom Cowie, Zach (14 June 2019).

“Anne Hamilton-Byrne, leader of notorious cult The Family, dies at 97”. The Age. Retrieved 14 June 2019. Campbell, James (16 August 2009).

“Payout for The Family sect Johnson, R. (1972) The Spiritual victims”. Sunday Herald Sun. The Path (Hodder & Stoughton: London) Herald & Weekly Times. Retrieved 19 ISBN 0-340-15852-2 December 2011.

Hamilton-Byrne, Sarah. (1995a) Unseen, Unheard, Unknown: My life inside the family of Anne HamiltonByrne (Penguin Books: Ringwood) ISBN 0-14-017434-6. Extract available online.

“The Family prays together, but no longer stays together”, The Age, AU, 11 June 1993.

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Middleton, W (4–5 May 2007), Reconstructing the Past: Trauma, Memory and Therapy. Background paper for the seminars “Trauma, Dissociation and Psychosis: Metaphor, Strategy and Reality” (PDF), Sydney: The Delphi Centre in collaboration with The Cannan Institute and the Trauma & Dissociation Unit, Belmont Hospital, p. 97, archived from the original (PDF) on 29 August 2007.

Campbell, James (16 August 2009).

“Creating the family tree”. The Sunday Herald Sun. Retrieved 4 January 2012.

Campbell, James (16 August 2009).

“A twisted controller”. The Sunday Herald Sun. Retrieved 5 January 2012.