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Meanwhile, according to a former believer, Aaron Greenberg--another early recruit of Applewhite and Nettles' (who were also known as the Two)--may be trying to establish himself as a leader of the remnant. Some survivors, however, view Greenberg as an Anti-Do because he once argued that believers had to become independent of the Two to reach the "Level Above Human." According to Montana sociologist Robert Balch, when Bo and Peep, as the founders then called themselves, went into hiding amid an early crisis, a disciple named Aaron led a faction that abetted beer drinking, pot smoking and sex--all activities disapproved of by Applewhite and Nettles. Bo and Peep reappeared to scold their flock, and a large number of dissenters departed. Heaven's Gate's cyberspace rants against unspecified "Luciferians" may partly be aimed at these more worldly schismatics.
Not that Bo and Peep's doctrines were ever set in stone. In the beginning they were the two witnesses prophesied by Revelation, who would be assassinated only to rise again after three days. Living with such a vision of God's plan, Applewhite asked recruits in 1975, "Would you be willing to bear arms for this cause?" He explained that "we don't mean to kill; we mean to incite people to kill us. If they saw you carrying guns, then that would give them cause to bear arms against us. And it might come to that. It might take that to get us killed." With the death from cancer of Nettles in 1985, the cult moved away from fulfilling Revelation. But perhaps not entirely. Last week police discovered a small arms cache at a storage facility near a former headquarters in Escondido, California.
From 1976 to about 1980 the group lived in isolation in a camp near Laramie, Wyoming, where the cult's tenets continued to evolve. The recruitment drive from California to Illinois had collected about 100 members, mostly free-associating hippies, college students and would-be mystics. By Wyoming, however, members were under stricter rules, sometimes spending upwards of 10 hours a day with tuning forks held to their ears. One ex-believer recalled, "They were being taught to send their thoughts to other people ... and while they were doing that, they were encouraged to open their minds so that Bo and Peep could go directly into them." Believers were told to "test the churches," trying the compassion of local ministers as they begged for fuel and food.
As everyone practiced disciplines that had them preparing for sudden visitations by spacecraft, Ti and Do impressed the idea of a great enterprise upon them. "People lead mediocre lives, and so these leaders exploited expectations of joining an elite," says Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute. The physical deprivations--lack of sleep, excessive work, repetitive chanting and duties--all contributed to subtle thought control.