Reopening the Heaven’s Gate: spirituality does not offer suicidal short-cuts

ABSTRACT

In 1997, thirty-nine members of a religious cult from California, US, committed mass suicide to gain abnormal powers exchanging their present body form. This is popularly known as Heaven’s Gate. In 2021, in India, two young women were killed by their learned parents to get abnormal powers by giving-up their present body form. The paper connects such incidences and answers questions like why we feel that our present form of life is worth quitting? Ten eminent personalities from different fields were interviewed. Their responses are presented in a “belief-emotion-behavior,” a novel format, analyzing the relationship between the three.

KEYWORDS:

• Heaven’s Gate
• suicide
• resurrection
• beliefs
• emotions
• behavior

Data availability statement

The empirical data used for the study is available with the author and can be supplied on demand.

Disclosure statement

The author has no competing or conflicting interest.

Ethics approval statement

The study has been carried out with due ethical compliance.

Patient consent statement

Not applicable.

Permission to reproduce material from other sources

For use of material from other sources due attribution has been made.

Additional information

Funding

No external funding was used for the study.