Based on the Strozier readings, I can make sense of how Marshall Applewhite (Do) was able to gain a following for Heaven’s Gate. Applewhite has all of the elements that the authors believe is required for a charismatic leader for a fundamentalist group.
Applewhite presents himself as a messianic in his Introduction in the Heaven’s Gate website. After watching the video that Amy posted, I wouldn’t say that he is the best speaker but I still think that he manages to come across as charismatic. Hoffer argues that “the effectiveness of a leader is dependent on his self-confidence rather than his message.” Applewhite relays his message with his strong personality and conviction in his initiation video, so I think that the video is an effective way to influence new followers.
I did more research into Marshall Applewhite and Heaven’s Gate in general because I really did not have an understanding of what actually happened other than what had been described on their website. What I though was interesting was that Applewhite had a near-death experience from a heart attack before he founded Heaven’s Gate. This reinforces the idea of being born-again. Initiation into Heaven’s Gate requires a student to break ties with “humanity” by leaving everything of this world: “family, sensuality, selfish desires, your human mind, and even your human body if it be required of you – all mammalian ways, thinking, and behavior.” New members must be born-again in order to be welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven.
The mass suicide of the Heaven’s Gate members in 1997 shows the effectiveness of Applewhite as a charismatic leader. Suicide is against the belief system of Heaven’s Gate, yet Applewhite is able to rationalize to his followers that suicide is a must for entry into the Kingdom of Heaven.
I also noticed Applewhite’s heart attack. I think that this, coupled with his then-dependency to the nurse Bettie (Ti), developed into the religious cultism and without that experience, and that duality of dependence the cult may never have been created.
It definitely made me more curious about the generating of cult-beliefs and the experiences of leaders and personal relationships that lead one to become a cult leader.
To go along that train of thought, does the leader having had these experiences before going out to teach others make them more valid in a way? All the time, personal accounts are used as ways to connect believers to non-believers and to get them, if not invested in the person, at the very least empathetic enough to hear them out.