"We're all ready to go. If you tell
us we have to give our lives, we're ready. All the rest of the sisters and
brothers are with me."-Reverend Jim Jones, 1978...Then nearly 1000 people
drank cyanide-laced Kool-aid.
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| Reverend Jim Jones |
Suicide or death cults seem to be a
twentieth century phenomenon: the Charles Manson 'ritual murders' in 1969; Jim
Jones and his followers-Jonestown, Guyana in 1978; David Koresh and the 'Branch
Davidians' at Waco, Texas in 1993; Shoko Asahara and his 'Aum' cult-Tokyo subway
sarin gas attack, 1995; the 'Heaven's Gate' mass suicide in 1997.
Charles Milles Manson was born in
1934 in Cincinnati, Ohio to a 16-year-old unmarried teenage. He
believed his murders would help precipitate an apocalyptic race war. At
the time the 'Manson Family' began to form, Manson was an unemployed
ex-convict, in and out of prison and had spent half of his life in correctional
institutions for a number of offences.
He had been a singer-songwriter on the fringe of the Los Angeles music industry, which perhaps explains, in part, his interest in the Beatles' song Helter Skelter, a term which he adopted and used in reference to his anticipated apocalypse.
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| Charles Manson |
He had been a singer-songwriter on the fringe of the Los Angeles music industry, which perhaps explains, in part, his interest in the Beatles' song Helter Skelter, a term which he adopted and used in reference to his anticipated apocalypse.
On July 25, 1969, Manson sent
Family member Bobby Beausoleil to the house of
acquaintance Gary Hinman, to persuade him to turn over money Manson
thought Hinman had inherited. That turned into the first (known) murder by the
'family' and was 'immortalised' when Beausoleil used Hinman’s blood to
write 'Political piggy' on the wall. the murder of Hollywood actress. The
destiny of Manson's group culminated with the murder of pregnant Hollywood
actress, Sharon Tate, the wife of film director Roman Polanski along
with a number of other victims.
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| Robert (Bobby) Beausoleil |
On the night of August 8, 1969, Manson
directed four family members to go to 'that house where Melcher used to live
and totally destroy everyone in [it], as gruesome as you can'. Manson had
told one of the women to 'leave a sign... something witchy'. As instructed,
one of the Manson family members used the towel that had bound one of the
victim's hands, and wrote 'pig' on the house’s front door, in Tate's blood. In
April 2012, still in prison, Charles Manson requested parole and, at the age of
77 years was denied. His next chance for request for parole will be at the age
of 92.
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| Jonestown, 1978 |
David Koresh (1959 – 1993),
born Vernon Wayne Howell, was the leader of a Branch Davidian religious
sect, a group which were shismatics from the Seventh-day Adventist
Church. Koresh believed himself to be the group's final 'prophet'. Like
Manson, Koresh was the product of a teenage pregnancy.
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| David Koresh |
He established their headquarters
at a ranch about 10 miles out of Waco, Texas which they called
the Mount Carmel Center. Allegations of child abuse and confinement led to
assault of the complex by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF)
on February 28, 1993 then by the F.B.I., resulting in a
fire. Barricaded in their building, seventy-six Branch Davidians,
including Koresh, did not survive that fire.
Shoko Asahara was born Chizuo
Matsumoto on March 2, 1955. He is a founder of the Japanese religious
group group Aum Shinrikyo. Asahara was the mastermind the 1995 sarin
gas (nerve gas) on the Tokyo subway, an assault which killed
thirteen people and resulted in side effects in thousands more. He faced
27 murder counts in 13 separate indictments and was sentenced to hang in
February, 2004.
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| Mount Carmel Center, Waco, Texas |
Heaven's Gate was an American UFO
religion, based in California, founded by Marshall Applewhite (1931–1997)
and Bonnie Nettles (1928–1985). On March 26, 1997, police
discovered the bodies of 39 members of the group who had committed
suicide in order to reach an alien space craft which they believed was
following the Comet Hale-Bopp, which was at its brightest. Heaven's
Gate members believed that Earth was about to be 'recycled' (wiped clean,
renewed, refurbished and rejuvenated), and that the only chance to survive was
to leave it immediately.
There have been many more, including
groups in Africa and Australia but this bent towards self-destruction isn't a
recent phenomenon in human history: the 'Thugees' of the Kali sect in India,
date as far back as the 8th century AD; the 'Assassins' of the 11th century in
what is now modern-day Iran; the 'Skoptsy' of 18th century Russia (see
post: Stranger Than Fiction)
"We're all going to heaven if we just do it
right!" Jim Jones.
"What fools these mortals be."-Puck, A Midsummer Night's Dream
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| Kali |
Click on the link below for 'Heaven's
Gate Cult Initiation' tape-Part One.
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