Heaven's Gate : : America's UFO Religion / / Benjamin E. Zeller.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter New York University Press Complete eBook-Package 2014-2015
• VerfasserIn: Zeller, Benjamin E.,
• MitwirkendeR: Balch, Robert W.,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : New York University Press, , [2014]; ©2014
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

2015 Best Book Award from the Communal Studies AssociationThe captivating story of the people of Heaven’s Gate, a religious group focused on transcending humanity and the Earth, and seeking salvation in the literal heavens on board a UFO. In March 1997, thirty-nine people in Rancho Santa Fe, California, ritually terminated their lives. To outsiders, it was a mass suicide. To insiders, it was a graduation. This act was the culmination of over two decades of spiritual and social development for the members of Heaven’s Gate.In this fascinating overview, Benjamin Zeller not only explores the question of why the members of Heaven’s Gate committed ritual suicides, but interrogates the origin and evolution of the religion, its appeal, and its practices. By tracking the development of the history, social structure, and worldview of Heaven’s Gate, Zeller draws out the ways in which the movement was both a reflection and a microcosm of larger American culture.The group emerged out of engagement with Evangelical Christianity, the New Age movement, science fiction and UFOs, and conspiracy theories, and it evolved in response to the religious quests of baby boomers, new religions of the counterculture, and the narcissistic pessimism of the 1990s. Thus, Heaven’s Gate not only reflects the context of its environment, but also reveals how those forces interacted in the form of a single religious body. In the only book-length study of Heaven’s Gate, Zeller traces the roots of the movement, examines its beliefs and practices, and tells the captivating story of its people.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of illustrations and tables -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. The cultural and religious origins of heaven’s gate -- 2. The spiritual quest and self-transformation: why people joined heaven’s gate -- 3. The religious worldview of heaven’s gate -- 4. Understanding heaven’s gate’s theology -- 5. Religious practices in heaven’s gate -- 6. Why suicide?: closing heaven’s gate -- Afterword: Heaven’s gate as an American religion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the author