Benjamin Zeller
speaker
150 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Benjamin Zeller’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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And by shrinking, they were able to maintain the cohesion of the group. Fundamental norms of the group was asked to leave. If you are prone to sort of negative outlook, you'd say that anyone who sort of challenged the group's leaders was kicked out. I would say from sort of a religious perspective, it really came down to sort of behavioral social norms. If you didn't fit, you were asked to leave.
And there were people who left. And there were also, to be clear, many people who left voluntarily. In fact, most people left voluntarily.
So I would say, having studied Heaven's Gate for basically, I don't know, for a while now, it's been 20 years over. One of the things that I've always found remarkable at Heaven's Gate is I think everyone who was involved knew what they were getting into. There was no one who had the wool pulled over their eyes.
It was very clear from the beginning, this is a group which is about leaving the planet. Now, initially in the 70s, they did to be clear, not endorse suicide. Suicide came much later. But there was over a decade where basically they had seen at least suicide as a possibility. Also, I think the leaders believed it. And I think that that really marks this group maybe and not as unique.
But this is not a case where you had charlatans in charge. I think the founders really fundamentally believed what they were preaching. And I think that was clear to the members, even ex-members who left the group. And there are still ex-members around who I've spoken with and talked to. By and large, I believe that this is legit and that the founders believed in it.
In the 1970s, there were certainly struggles. And partially that was because there was almost no cohesive leadership. T. and Doe founded the group. But then they actually didn't take a lot of control. So they told members to sort of try to get with the program, which was to abandon their humanity.
So you had to abandon sexuality, you had to abandon drugs and alcohol, had to disconnect from your birth family, had to quit your job, had to try to attune yourself to the next level. Aber sie erzählten niemandem, wie man das tun kann. Es gab Leute, die zu Campgrounds gingen und sagten, ich weiß nicht, wie man das tun kann.
Ich weiß nicht, wie man die Menschheit verlassen kann, weil ich niemanden zu beibringen habe. Und so, nach ein paar Monaten, bis zu einem Jahr, hat T&O wirklich die Gruppe kontrolliert. Initial gab es Chaos. Und Rob Balch, mein Freund, ist ein Soziologe, der die Gruppe studierte, in den 70ern, hat oft bemerkt, dass es in manchen Fällen sehr überraschend war, dass die Gruppe weiterging.
Es sah so aus, als würde sie sich völlig entfernen. weil es wirklich keine Kontrolle von den Foundern, von den Führern gab. In der Wyoming Campground in 1976, als Bonny Lou Nettles im Grunde gesagt hat, wir werden eine Art Bootcamp-Institut schaffen. Das war dann, als es sich solidifizierte. Und das war dann, als die Verschiebungen endeten.
Ja, das Verabschieden von Sexualität war einer der wichtigen Komponenten der Gruppe. Und am Ende war Kastration eine der Möglichkeiten, die einige männliche Mitglieder ausgewählt haben. Von Anfang an war dies ein besonders schwieriges Prozess.
I would say giving up your family, from what ex-members have told me, giving up your sexuality, giving up your family, giving up your friendships, all of these things meant abandoning your humanity. Now that's what they were going for, but sexuality in particular was problematic. And so for the individuals who chose to become castrated, they thought this was a way to make the process easier.
Supposedly, from those who spoke about it, it did.
Einige Mitglieder wurden sofort eingeladen. In den 70er-Jahren gab es einen anderen Prozess von den 80er- und 90er-Jahren. In den 70er-Jahren wurden Sie eingeladen und Sie haben eine E-Mail-Karte erhalten oder Sie haben eine E-Mail-Karte eingeladen. And the letter said, bring a car, bring a change of clothes and a tent and some camping equipment. But that's it. And so then you're going to meet us.
And they told you where to meet. And then they would sort of travel around. And you would sort of slowly learn the ropes of the group. By the 80s and 90s, when the group was much more settled, if you joined, they would tell you to sort of move in with them. Und sie würden dir zeigen, wie man das macht. Und einige von ihnen blieben, viele von ihnen gingen weg.
Es gab tatsächlich ein paar Leute, die in den letzten Gruppen der 1990er-Jahre mitgekommen sind. Sie sind tatsächlich mit dem E-Mail-Grupp zusammengekommen. Also hatten sie eine Art Website am Ende. Es waren zwei Leute, die am Ende gegründet haben. Es waren ein paar und einer stand und einer war noch da. Aber die E-Mail sagte, hey, willst du einsteigen?
Ich sagte, gut, hier ist, wo wir leben, komm uns einsteigen. Und die Leute, die gegründet haben, wurden sortiert, wie man Teil des Gruppes sein kann. Es war in manchen Fällen eine Zwischenzeitentscheidung. Du würdest entscheiden, zu einsteigen. Aber es war auch ein langer Prozess. Und die Leute fehlten oder wurden gefragt, zu verlassen. What was hard about that?
What was the process they were teaching? Fundamentally, there were two things going on. One was you had to disengage from your humanity. And then at the same time, you were supposed to reengage with the next level. So we already talked about disengaging from your humanity. That included things like giving up sex, drugs, likes and dislikes.
So it would be a bit like how they imagined living on the crew of a spaceship. This was always modeled on in some way science fiction. So think Star Trek. So when you eat, you go to the mess hall and you're fed whatever people are eating. So it didn't matter if you liked or didn't like the food, it's what you had. So they had sort of a collective dining in that way.
They wore uniforms because that's how they imagined they would live in outer space. So it didn't matter if you didn't like the clothing, that's what you wore. They had the same haircuts. Sie hatten Meditation, wo sie versucht haben, auf dem nächsten Niveau zu meditieren, und sie hatten verschiedene Techniken dafür. Grundsätzlich
Das, was sie gemacht haben, war, dass sie auf die Lehren von Tee und Dough hörten und dann nach Tee, nachdem Nettles weggeflogen war, nur Dough. Sie hörten zu ihren Lehren und sie hatten eine Art Lektion und sie versuchten, das auszulösen und gleichzeitig von allem auf der Erde-Level auszuschließen. Es gab sehr wenige Verbindungen zu deiner Erde-Familie.
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