2. Heaven's Gate
Over a period of three days in March of 1997, 39 members of a bizarre UFO cult named Heaven's Gate successfully committed a form of ritual suicide, hoping to leave their physical bodies behind to ascend to a "level of existence above human" as dictated by their leader, Marshall Applewhite. Mixing heavy doses of extraterrestrial new age gobbledygook with techniques intended to eliminate the animal nature of their existence in preparation for the step up to a level of evolution above human, Applewhite's followers eagerly chose suicide, believing that their souls would be grabbed by a UFO he said was following in the trail of the Hale-Bopp comet.
That all happened at their compound in San Diego, so what's the Texas connection? Marshall Applewhite was born in the town of Spur, Texas, and went to high school in Corpus Christi. After college he taught music in Houston at The University of Saint Thomas. In 1972, after suffering a mental collapse, Applewhite was recovering in a Texas mental hospital when he met Bonnie Nettles. The "Two" became convinced that they were prophesied leaders from the Book of Revelations and had a great purpose to fulfill. While their cult's mass suicide was still years away, the crazy belief system they developed began percolating in Houston. The couple quickly founded the Christian Arts Center here in Houston, specializing in astrology, mysticism, comparative religions, healing, metaphysics and theosophy. The seeds of their space suicide cult were indeed sown in H-Town, and I've met people who attended lectures by Applewhite in the early '70s.
1. David Koresh.
In 1959, a man named Vernon Wayne Howell was born in Houston. Following a troubled life into early adulthood, Howell experienced a spiritual awakening that eventually led him to join the Branch Davidians, a religious group that is an offshoot of Seventh Day Adventism. The Branch Davidians had built their headquarters several miles outside of Waco, and eventually Vernon Howell changed his name to David Koresh and assumed leadership of the group.
The Branch Davidians were and still are a peaceful religious sect, and although their belief system includes things such as living prophets, they are not a cult. Koresh, however, exhibited troubling, ego-driven behavior that would fit most people's definition of a cult leader, and, amid reports of underage sex and illegal firearm activities, eventually the federal government got involved. What followed is one of the most famous standoffs between the Feds and private citizens in U.S. history, and it's also controversial to a lot of people.
During the initial raid, four federal agents and six Branch Davidians were killed. Then, after a weeks-long siege on the compound, the building burned, killing 76 of Koresh's followers, including children. The cause of the fire is still disputed, with blame cast far and wide. I'll leave it to others to decide who was at fault, or whether the Branch Davidians involved operated as an actual cult, but it seems pretty clear that David Koresh at least exhibited many of the signs of a cult leader. If he'd taken his love for rock music on the road and fallen in love with a woman instead of finding religion, maybe he'd still be playing crappy coffee-shop gigs somewhere in Mexico and all parties involved at Waco would still be alive.
Those are but five of many different groups, both large and small, that could be considered cults by most people. Despite being very different from one another, they have a few things in common. They all had a controlling leader or leaders, they had non-traditional belief systems and they all spent time in the great state of Texas.
