Heaven's Gate: Pawns of the Superspectrum? Part 2
Unpacking similarities between Heaven's Gaters and "victims" of the Superspectrum. Stick with us, people! There's still a Part 3 coming!
Read Part 1 here
In John Keel’s superspectrum model, mysterious forces influence percipients by projecting waves of energy into their heads. This meant our brains were susceptible to being “programmed and reprogrammed like a computer.”1 Humans were nothing more than “biochemical robots”2 acting on orders from anomalous energies. The idea that people are unwitting receivers for mysterious mental transmissions is central to the understanding of the superspectrum—and it also factored heavily into the Two’s relationship with the Next Level.
In Heaven’s Gate parlance, humans were devices; “vehicles,” or “mechanisms” that could be “reprogrammed” with guidance from a Next Level Being. Personal evolution involved getting one’s “circuitry adapted,” and members were said to function on different “computer programs” or “software” depending on their level of progression. According to one member, the information received from the Next Level was so intense that it “[blew] the circuitry of the comparatively primitive human computers (brains) [they] were using.”3
In a 1976 interview with researcher Brad Steiger, Bo and Peep declined to respond to certain inquiries because they said they were “not computerized to answer such questions.”4
During their initial wandering period, the Two acted as mechanical extensions for the frequencies of the superspectrum, following “where ‘the spirit’ led, lacing the country up and down and from side to side as if they were being used as cameras and micro- phones for the Next Level.”5 [emphasis added] By comparing themselves to tools that rely on currents of energy to transmit the scenes they capture, Bo and Peep reveal the superspectrum’s potential involvement.
Indeed, the Two repeatedly referred to themselves as machines capable of downloading mental broadcasts from NLBs. They claimed to be “extremely sensitive transmitters and receivers”6 that could detect vibrations from the Next Level. Like stations on a cosmic radio dial, these signals were obtained through a “tuning in”7 process where seekers “tune their minds” to the Next Level’s “wavelength.”
Bo also encouraged members to seek out “high energy places”8 (areas with better reception for the superspectrum’s transmissions?), where members were to act as relay stations to amplify cosmic dispatches. Students were charged with “putting signals into the atmosphere for others to draw upon.”9 The Two likened these mental outbursts to “radio impulses.”
The group later suggested that the alien implants being reported by abductees were “an advanced computer chip” that facilitated communication between NLBs and selected folks on Earth.
It weirdly makes sense—if Bo and Peep’s NLBs were created by a form of “super energy,” then sticking a metal receiver in someone’s skull would do wonders for their reception!
The types of technology the group used to spread its doctrine offer further evidence of the superspectrum’s influence. In 1992, as the nascent satellite TV market began to attract an audience, Heaven’s Gate received “clear signals” telling them to launch their own broadcasts in order to expand their reach.10 The result was a 12 episode series titled Beyond Human - The Last Call. They later flooded early internet message boards with posts about their teachings before launching their own website to carry their message globally.
Both of these mass communication channels (the internet and satellite TV) are made possible by invisible signals from the EM spectrum—which might be the main reason Heaven’s Gate was “divinely” coaxed to embrace them in the first place. If the group was under the control of an intelligent cosmic energy, it would be likely to encourage them to distribute its message along the same frequencies it already commands.
The Two’s tenets weren’t revolutionary. Their beliefs about off-world saviors and the suppression of human urges had been conveyed by a host of earlier experiencers. Perhaps they shared the same superspectrum-inspired source material?
Keel noted that the superspectrum often targeted “non-smokers, teetotalers and vegetarians.”11 These rules were adopted by Bo and Peep who stressed abstinence from earthly vices like food, drugs, and sex. They directed followers to have “no likes or cravings for food, other than as fuel,” while denouncing attachments to “families, homes, money, tobacco, alcoholic beverages, children, sex and any kind of drugs, including marijuana.” Maybe a clear head and clean body allow one to better receive the superspectrum’s transmissions.
Bo and Peep proclaimed that NLBs would arrive in a UFO to pick up those who had earned a seat on their interstellar church bus. This same assurance was regularly cited by other contactees who had interactions with suspected superspectrum entities. As Keel observed: “They always promise to return.”
“Sometimes they tell us jokes.”12 Superspectrum manifestations usually offered vague or incomplete information, leaving their witnesses confused and frustrated. According to Keel’s model, this limited hangout is typical. Superspectrum-sponsored entities “deliberately sow confusion and nonsense,” while “operating on a mysterious timetable.”13 This held true for the Next Level Beings in contact with Heaven’s Gate. The group acknowledged that they were on a “need to know basis,” and only given small pieces of the overarching plan. Details about “next steps” and “timetables” were routinely omitted.
In the course of his research, Keel found that people who had contact with the paranormal—people like Bo and Peep—were so obsessed with their revelations that they turned into unrelenting missionaries for those beliefs. This zeal usually came at an expense:
“[Percipients] become completely preoccupied with the contact experience. Such individuals devote a large part of their time to spreading the ‘message’ of the UFO occupants even though this may lead to the loss of their jobs and the eventual disintegration of their family life. They become ‘space age messiahs’ and willingly endure ridicule and hardship in order to advance the ‘cause.’”14
Keel’s description sounds exactly like what occurred in the lives of the Two. They dissolved their social and familial bonds to focus solely on propagating their newly downloaded dogma. A former student put it succinctly: “The class knows that the world sees them as a cult, and that no longer bothers them. They know that all they care about is the Next Level.”15 [emphasis added]
Part 3 (coming soon) will conclude our analysis of the superspectrum and its potential impact in Bo and Peep’s lives.
Keel, The Eighth Tower, 11.
Keel, The Eighth Tower, 221.
“Overview of Present Mission.” April, 1996. https://www.heavensgate.com/book/05.htm.
Hewes, Hayden, and Brad Steiger. UFO Missionaries Extraordinary. Pocket Books, 1976, p. 114.
“'88 Update - The UFO Two and Their Crew.” 18, October 1988. https://www.heavensgate.com/book/3-3.htm.
Hewes and Steiger, Missionaries, p. 120.
Chryssides, George. Heaven’s Gate: Postmodernity and Popular Culture in a Suicide Group. Ashgate Publishing, 2011, p. 40.
Phelan, James. “Looking for: The Next World.” New York Times, 29 Feb. 1976.
“'88 Update.” https://www.heavensgate.com/book/3-3.htm.
“Overview of Present Mission.” https://www.heavensgate.com/book/05.htm.
Keel, Anomaly #2, p. 30.
“‘The Two’ seek spaceship recruits.” The Bulletin, 29 Jan. 1976, p. 15.
Keel, John. Operation Trojan Horse. Anomalist Books, 2013, p. 332-333.
Keel, Anomaly #2, 26.
“'88 Update.” https://www.heavensgate.com/book/3-3.htm.