From: Jasmine Sailing (jsailing@netonecom.net) Wed May 7 16:04:42 EDT 1997
* This Message by - gene santagada (genexs@mhv.net)
* First off, it's dubious claim that the HG victims acted on their
* own. These people were under the domination of a powerful
* leader. Much information about the internal working of this
* "cult" (for lack of a better term) is coming to light. Much of this
* is contrary to the image projected on their web site.
Yeah. In that initial file, I said no one seemed to give a damn about everything leading up to the suicides so I wouldn't bother going into that. Of course the second someone brings it up though... =) I left it at saying that of course things like checking their life insurance policies, to see if the person getting the meds for them to OD on happened to be the recipient, should be in order.
* In HG, thinking for one's self, and having opinions, was contrary
* to their central tenants. Questioning teachers, or "guides", was
* taboo.
Kinda like the main religions in this country. => Screw religions, you can be considered a terrorist for saying "Clinton sucks my white cock" in public. Must not badmouth our leaders...
* Individuality was another concept they disliked. In addition to
Once again... These are all of the levels where Heaven's Gate is a perfectly normal religion followed by perfectly normal people.
* techniques were employed to keep their cult free of
* independent thinking, individuality, and inquisitiveness.
There was their flaw... they forgot to tell them to just turn on the TV like everyone else does.
* Some factors of the HG debacle is textbook clich‚ Freud. The
* leader Applewhite was a self loathing homosexual. When
* Applewhite was younger, he suffered terribly at the hands of our
* intolerant society, because of his sexual orientation. This was a
* great influence on development of his "religion".
Much like it's always easier to laugh at the person who is down, if you're already that down the best you can do is make sure other people are even lower. Of course when I was a little nerd kid, I started getting a step higher than the other little nerd kids (my friends). So I viciously turned on them because I wanted to be cool and be better than some other people. I was still lower than everyone else, but at least I had a few defenseless frightened nerds to pick on while I got picked on and traumatized by everyone else.
I think self-loathing is often at the root of religion though.
* Enforced celibacy and sexual mutilation was practiced by this
* group. How much more sexually self loathing can you get? A
* sort of god-like asexual androgynous angel was the highest form
* someone could attain. You got brownie points in the hereafter if
* you tried to look and act like this. The alimentation of sexual
* feeling, and erasure of gender was sacramentalized.
See, I understand all of this. I don't really think of self-mutilation as a symptom of self-loathing. I think of it as a way of keeping that self- loathing from killing you. I always had that shame and it effects you in different ways. I was afraid of enjoying sex because that would mean I wanted to do it for enjoyment. I was thoroughly frigid until... Oh, no more than 5 years ago. I thought I could have sex as long as I hated it. Still haven't worked all of that out. I'm the only person who can give myself an orgasm (ok, Paul could, but he's dead). Didn't learn how to do that for myself with another person until my 2nd marriage. Used to be that if I so much as dreamed about having sex with someone I would be thoroughly disgusted with myself. I definitely thought I deserved pain. And several times I thought the world would be a much better place without my disgusting self. There were times when I definitely would've thought a god-like asexual androgynous being really is the best you can be. Many things about sex still disgust and terrify me, which is why I rarely do it and poor Bruce has to be a patient monk. ={
It doesn't take stupidity or insanity to wind up feeling like that. It takes having bad experiences that you didn't manage to deal well enough with. Not sure why I never wound up in a weird cult. Actually came close when I was in California I guess. I was confused enough back then. Methinks I've just been lucky, and without that luck I'd be no better off than a Heaven's Gate person. Well, chances are the HGers are actually a lot better off than me at this point...
* IMHO, this sort of behavior is psychopathology, and not religion.
* Although HG may fit a dictionary definition of a religion, and
* had the trappings of religion, many theologians would classify it
* otherwise. One of the things
The psychopathology is separate from the religion. The
psychopathology is the individuals, the individuals generally turn to the
religion for help in dealing with the problems. They don't look at that as
self-destructing. They look at it as hope for becoming clean and pure
again. That is religion. You can use any form of ritual to get the effect,
but it is still religion. I think people are looking at this from the
perspective of "Ooh, they went in a bad direction". That's not THEIR
perspective though. If they were already in the bad direction, then they
look to religion for hope. I'm going to drag in something I wrote earlier
today:
*******
I think it was probably a lot of the joyful suicide it must've been for
Paul. That portion of me that is happy for him because I know death was
the only place he had left to go. His only hope for escaping pain.
The HG people were pretty screwed up. I think their deaths were probably joyful in that they were dying because it gave them hope and faith. Or at least something salvagable beyond their present existence. None of them were necessarily bad or weird people, they went the wrong ways in life. A lot of it seems to have been classic sexual traumas. Kinda like "Without Pain, Without Death". Val's death was a good thing because it gave her transcendence and bliss when she was never capable of feeling either in life.
I'm glad the HGers got their chance at bliss. I'm not glad they managed to be fucked up enough by life to need death for their bliss. And I definitely don't think they deserved it through any genetics. This society we've created is the only real cause.
I think I've just watched too many wonderful people fall apart that
badly to buy into thinking stupidity and worthlessness is a necessary
requirement for its happening.
*****
* I personally find shocking is an utter lack of spirituality. In place
* of a sense of wonder we get Star Trek. Instead of the ineffable,
* we get mother-ships. Instead of angles, we get big headed,
* paternalistic,
No spirituality? Oh, there was definitely spirituality there. There's almost no stronger religion than that caused by desperation. Their religion was about as standard as you can get: looking for paradise, for repentance and purity. If you base religion on shame and guilt, then the religion must supply the salvation of repentance. These people were really fucking bent on getting that repentance. I kinda admire the determination, though I think it's sadder than hell that they were to the point of thinking they needed it. Everyone will be so quick to laugh at that determination. Kinda doubt so many people were quick to say their shame and guilt might be a wee bit unfounded, back when it might've mattered.
* androgynous Munchkins, who seem more interested in
* terra-forming than our puny problems. And to help us through
* our complex lives, and shade us from the tyranny of culture, we
* are given a blend of new age confusion and Pulp SF. I feel very
* sorry for these people. I do not mean to be disrespectful of this
* tragedy; but I find the things these people held as gospel to be
* utter nonsense and downright silly.
Yes, but that's you. It isn't at all utter nonsense or downright silliness, it's as valid as all accepted things it parallels. You don't like it, but that doesn't invalidate it. They were no more weird than you are, and they were no less needy of hope (in whatever wondrous and odd forms it chooses to come in) than anyone else is. If they found a form of hope that wasn't the best possible one out there, well, perhaps they should've been offered another form?
Ok. Everyone can handle it that drug addicts often find God through 12 step programs. They can handle it that the drug addicts then often get overly needy with God, admonishing all of their responsibility to him, grovelling for guidance, saying "Take my worthless life into your righteous hands and do as you will with it cuz I'm just a weak mortal who can't do shit right". It's the same thing. Rather than going through detox (which many of them likely were, on top of everything), the Heaven's Gate people underwent a rigorous sexual purification so they could be clean and go be happy in Heaven rather than stuck in this fucked up Hell.
If people are finding a destructive salvation, it's not a bad call to try to gently nudge them in another direction. You can't force it, but you can see if they can be redirected a little. Sometimes they can, sometimes they can't. Don't belittle their faiths though. Faiths can be a lot different from what you are used to, but they are based on experiences. It goes to reason that you wouldn't feel the same way as someone who has had completely different experiences. If you want to think something is foolish and non-religious, try aiming for the scam artists. Or for people who get religious in certain ways (various New Agers spring to mind) out of trendiness alone, no real faith. Actual faith, no matter how misled its basis and no matter how different it seems, is never nonsense because it always has genuine psychological reasons for being there.
* I do not feel they died for any great cause. The fact that they did
* not harm outsiders is poor reason to cut HG slack.
They did die for a great cause. They died as their proof of faith. They died in giving themselves worth. There's something that can be so rare as to become a great cause every time it happens. They died for a great cause because they made their own great cause and went with it. I wouldn't say that in respect to their mentor. I don't think he's a great cause to die for. I say it in respect to the dead people, who did what they personally needed to do at that moment. Shit, at least they believed in SOMETHING enough to act on it. Hard for people to believe in anything beyond what the TV guide tells them they're getting.
Of course their not harming other people is no reason to cut them slack. It's far more acceptable to be homicidal than suicidal. Had they been decent individuals by societal standards, they would've killed 31 school children and claim to have done it to save them from their sins.
Murder is okay cuz it ain't gonna happen to you in your nice little neighborhood (referring to suburbanites here, not Gene). Suicide always makes people defensive and edgy though. Look at how hard they're fighting to keep euthanasia illegal. Even the people who are pro- euthanasia for health reasons wouldn't accept it that the mental health can also deteriorate to the point where you know you need to die. You can kill someone for stealing a rake out of your back yard. Damn well better have a good enough excuse if you're going to even THINK about killing your SELF though.
I think THAT is silly nonsense.
* Damaged people sometimes hand the keys of their lives over to
* someone they trust has all the answers, especially when life has
* been tough going. For many of us on this list, life--at times--has
* been an ordeal. And who is not weak? The followers of these
* people had the misfortune of picking someone who was a danger
* to themselves and those around him. In other words, he was
* crazy. I feel recent history supports my hypothesis.
I don't think he was crazy any more than anyone else. I think he went too far over the edge and reached out to take more people with him (which is a very typical element of self-destructive behaviour. Half of it is reaching out to avoid falling the rest of the way, the other half is trying to avoid being alone when you really do fall). I think he needed help... I think the people following him needed help... but I still think it was moreso screwed up people dealing with internal agony than an unreasoning crazy person. They were still reasoning, as exhibited by the quest for salvation. Their ways of reasoning got a bit stretched, which would likely be perforce, but it was still there.
I would bet that they actually were a bit on the intellectual side. That makes it easiest for people to get this, shall we say, creative. Think yourself into endless loops, every side of your mind attacking the others, running yourself down. Wishing you could just yank your brain out of your head and be done with it. Getting a whirlpool of bad thoughts going and feeling horrible about it. Oh, I could see how people could come to think of it as a bad thing to not be able to just shut it all off. Especially when the whirlpool becomes so violent that you NEED to live with it all shut-off.
I suspect the majority of them were probably introverts anyway.
* But I hope that person has checked out all other options. They
* should make sure they are making a rational decision. When this
* man's life was in ruins, what would have happened if he
* stumbled into HG? Oh, he liked my Joe Campbell books, and
* was not interested in converting me.
This guy found the 12 step hope instead another hope. You can't expect people to make rational decisions about suicide, though. You can't expect them to check into options. In this case, I think they already knew there were really were no better options. The best one out there was paradise and redemption. They took it. I think the main difference there is that you generally can recover from your problems in life, but you can't always recover from who you became as a course of them. I don't know if it is actually living when you can no longer live with yourself.
Under normal circumstances, though, suicide is often far more impulsive. It takes a split second to decide you can't handle it anymore. There's no rationale in that moment, only desperation/impulse. People used to always ask me to promise to call them if I started feeling suicidal. I would have to say no can do because I knew that if I got that desperate I would be too busy flipping out and wanting death to pause and think about things like calling people to get talked out of it. You don't even WANT to get talked out of it in that split second. Sometimes you do while you are building up to it. No rationale. Just the over-whelming knowledge that you can't take it anymore and need to stop the pain.
And then some people do think it out very cohesively, for years, then realize they are stuck in life and keep wandering in any direction that'll be most likely to take them out of it.
* I think you are correct when you state the HG group suicide is an
* improper nomination for the Darwin Awards. But I do not think
* the nomination impugns esoteric religions. Nor do I feel its fair
* to shout "Nazi skinheads" at people who think it is a proper
You mean by calling it the Social Darwinist awards? It's always been that. Social Darwinism is thinking that various types of people (generally of similar heritage) are more highly evolved in the gene pool, and that lessers will weed themselves out or be weeded out for the sake of better evolution. Survival of the fittest and all that. The Darwin awards at least WERE about people doing stupid things that caused their accidental deaths, therefore helping the gene pool by not having children who would do similar stupid things. That's a safe enough rule of thumb: don't do anything so stupid as to cause your accidental death. That's definitely social darwinism. Breeding toward survival of the fittest by eliminating those who lack in some of the most basic common sense. So I definitely enjoyed the social darwinist awards, I'm not saying that to scream "nazi". Said it because I know people wouldn't quite think of it that way. Many people who yell "ooh evil!" at the word social darwinist and then somehow fail to make the complete connection will be chuckling along with social darwinistic humour. I just wanted to slap a few people by calling it as it is. =) Eugenics aren't a specific Nazi trait anyway. They're a popular human pastime, coveted by every race and religion.
The social darwinist awards took a completely different turn with the collective HG/Koresh/Jim Jones nomination. The first time to nominate suicide and murder rather than accidental death. The first time to place judgement on diversity. They made quite a leap to the status quo with this one. Yuck. It's not a stab at esoteric religion, it's a stab at "mental instability". Anything cult or militia related, whether resulting in suicide or murder, is automatically a black spot in our genetic coding.
And I still think the Koresh situation had far more of a political bent than a religious one though. They had guns and feds rather than nice suits and meds to OD on.
* those who are making fun of HG. But I agree that people who
* somehow feel the HG victims deserve what they got are clueless
* jerks.
Garsh, you mean I'm not just being a hopeless bleeding heart? =)
* seems a high degree of irony is a necessary qualifier. I part
* company with you here: I think anyone who accidently kills
* themselves in a ceremony celebrating Life is a solid nomination!
* =)
Ya got me there. =) If they're celebrating life, decide they'll fly over that rock, fall into the fire instead...
You even have to be careful with that. I've seen people stand in fire without being burned. People can release themselves to primality, expect to be protected by it, and then suddenly have something go completely frigging wrong for once and kill them. It may seem odd for people to think they can get away with standing in a fire, but reality is based on individual perception. I used to put my hand into pots of boiling water without ever getting hurt. Then one day I guess I started thinking about it too much, psyched myself out, and got burnt. A good rule of thumb there is to not do something if you feel afraid of it at the moment. But what, then, of the times when you feel fine about doing it but something else goes wrong? You can have these primal experiences that are a very safe and cleansing release. You are used to trusting them and letting yourself go. Something could go wrong and you could get badly hurt or killed, but the chances are slim. You risk it because otherwise you don't get this wonderful religious experience.
So, when that slim chance catches up to you, are you then an idiot for having taken the risk? Hitch-hiking is a much more stupid risk and I haven't seen anyone get nominated for getting butchered by someone who picked them up.
Now I'm not going to say that getting primal or trancing or anything else like that is an excuse for irresponsibility. Quite the contrary, there should be more responsibility. Everyone should make sure the perimeter is safe. You shouldn't leave that jutting log over by the fire to trip people. You shouldn't have the fire set up in any way that could spread. You should be careful about having the right people with you. Under the proper circumstances, everyone can trance out and instinctively avoid each other. As long as the area is safe, they'll be safe. It all becomes one hell of a positive charge. If you have people who aren't quite going to flow on the same wave-length as everyone, you need to keep at least a small portion of yourself focused on them to make sure they don't knock you over or something. I've had to completely bow out of some of my past trances because it was obvious that contributing factors would make it too dangerous. If everything was well secured and running beautifully and if something just went completely wrong for once, causing a few people to land on top of each other in the fire, then I don't think it indicates stupidity. You can't be expected to deny yourself every powerful and positive charge because it comes with a .5% risk factor. If I died from drugs I would deserve the nomination because I knew better but didn't take proper security precautions anyway (Talking about killing myself with speed or something). There's a much higher than .5% risk factor there.
Jasmine Sailing %%%% Cyber-Psychos AOD %%%%
jsailing@netonecom.net
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
http://www.netonecom.net/~jsailing %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Cyber-Psycho originates from the Greek roots khyber (governor)
and psyche (soul). In this world only the crazy are sane. We are the
crazy who seek to be our own governors, we regulate and correct the
evolution of our own souls. Trust no one who doesn't laugh.