Heaven's Gate: The Cult of Cults (2020–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - The Chrysalis - full transcript

[geese honking]

[flute playing]

SAWYER: Since there was no music
in the group,

I sold all of my instruments.

And so, when I left,
the first thing I did,

it was rent a flute
and buy a harmonica.

I like to, you know,
mix it up.

[playing harmonica]

[harmonica and drums playing]

Yeah, I was hitchhiking
down to Texas one time.

[continues playing]



And I saw a UFO down there.

It was about 1976

after I joined with
what was called the UFO cult.

But anyway, I didn't--
I didn't have any sex

with aliens
or anything like that.

There's other parts of that

that I could keep on
talking about, but...

I don't wanna freak people out.

[playing continues]

Let's see here.

This book was written
by Ti and Do.

The cover says
"How and When

'Heaven's Gate'"--
in the biggest letters--

"The Door to the Physical
Kingdom Level Above Human



May Be Entered."

[music]

"As the two Older Members
put out a 'statement'

"and held public meetings
over about a nine-month period

"in 1975-76, to bring
their crew together,

"the media tagged them
the 'UFO Cult.'

"Because of their expectation
of leaving aboard a spacecraft,

"the two Older Members
then went into seclusion

with their crew."

After that nine-month period
of holding meetings

around the country,

Ti and I felt like
we had instruction

to call the students together
and to begin

an intensive, or in-depth
classroom training program.

The numbers started dwindling,

cut about 50% to somewhere
in the 40s or 50s.

And then, we started

really getting down
to the nitty-gritty.

They said it was gonna be
the most difficult process

that a human could embark upon,

and that it's not likely
that we would all make it.

BENJAMIN: They put this together
out of everything

they thought was important.

This is a list
of their behavioral guidelines.

These were distributed
in November 1976.

The read is very extreme
if you're not a member.

[Frank Lyford speaking]

If you don't want to do those,
then you're not welcome.

SAWYER: The first one is,
"Can you follow instructions

without adding your own
interpretation?"

Two, "Can you deliver
instructions

"as you receive them,
or do they change

according to your programming?"

Three, "Do you participate
in inconsiderate conversation?"

Four, "Are you physically
clumsy?"

Five, "Do you halfway
complete a task because..."

Six, "Do you put tasks off,
procrastinate?"

NARRATOR: Strict obedience
and accuracy

were demanded for entry
to the Next Level,

so every task
was regulated.

You were not to come up with,

"Well, I'm gonna make
the pancakes this big."

There was a mixture,

a size,
how many a person got,

how the syrup was poured on it,
everything.

SAWYER: Nine, "Staying in
my own head,

"having private thoughts,
taking any action

without using
my check partner."

BENJAMIN: Heaven's Gate
practiced a system

called the check partner system.

Your check partner
would be assigned to you

to make sure that
you were following the rules.

LESLIE LIGHT: And they'd pair
you up with the person

you'd least likely
want to be with.

And I didn't have
a lot of rough street edges,

so they gave me this really
crazy, hyper,

speed-freak, street person guy

that was, like,
hard to be around.

SAWYER: "Major Offenses:

"Lying to my teachers
or any of my classmates.

"Breaking any instruction
or procedure knowingly.

Sensuality-- permitting arousal
in thought or in action."

WOMAN: Sex, it's a tough one.

- It's a hard one.
- [laughing]

WOMAN #2: What if you slip?

I mean, are you forgiven once
if you make a slip?

[laughter]

[Frank speaking]

SAWYER: What's left, right?

Right?

Someone would think,

"If I followed
all these things 100%,

then I would be a robot."

I didn't like what I saw,

'cause the rigidity
and the...

was a turn-off to me.

I would never submit
to anything that was controlled.

See, I don't--
anything that controls people,

that's why I became a hippie,
I did not like control.

And those two things,
I just thought, that's--

you know, I don't wanna be
involved anymore.

ROBERT BALCH: As people
left the group

for one reason or another,
got spun off,

the energy inside the group
would actually increase

because everybody
really wants to be there,

and you're getting rid
of the people

that have doubts, questions,

kind of still too much
into their own personal habits.

Those people kind of fall
to the wayside.

TI: Do you feel that
you have made the progress

that you wanted to make?

Have you met the expectations?

Well, the thing is,
our expectations

are constantly growing.

It's like...
I know I've changed some,

but I haven't become nearly
what I want to become.

I don't think people know
how deep their humanness goes,

and what it involves
trying to overcome it.

It gets down
to the nitty-gritty

of your ways
of looking at things,

and your ways of responding,

and things that have been
engrained in you

for years and years in this
particular body that you have.

And there are a lot of things
that I've been feeling,

but nothing I could describe.

[music]

JANJA LALICH: So, this was one
of their publications,

it's called "Ruffles."

It says here
"Snacks for thinkers"

because this spaceship kind of
looks like a potato chip.

This was given to me
by Dick Joslyn,

and everyone was asked
to turn in

some kind of little saying

that fit very much
with their ideology.

For example,
"A goal is not reached

"by just learning
how to reach it.

The goal is reached
by doing what you learned."

So, it kind of shows
their sense of discipline.

"Everyone interprets the truth

at his own level
of understanding."

This is like
alternate facts, right?

This is very relevant
to today.

These people
were very ahead of time.

[chuckles]

"Reality is not something
you escape from.

Reality is something
you escape to."

So, that means you're not really
living in reality.

What cults need to do is to
turn you into a conformist,

you know, to get you, hopefully,
to become a true believer.

They need to break down you
and create a new you.

DO: When you're in the process
of overcoming this vehicle,

it loses its identity.

It loses the consciousness
of who it was.

JANJA: The deepest part
of the indoctrination came

when they were convinced that
they were not human beings.

They were convinced that
they were actually these beings

from the Next Level above,

and that they were essentially
living inside

these human shells,
which they called vehicles.

DO: We'll use the term "vehicle"

when we speak of this body
that we're wearing,

this flesh and bones,
because we don't relate to it.

It's not me, it's just a suit
of clothes that I wear.

BENJAMIN: Any religious group
has its own terminology.

As you join the group,
you have to learn the language.

It's sort of an unofficial
initiation process.

SAWYER: The house was a craft,
like a spacecraft.

The kitchen was the Nutri-Lab.

The laundry
was the Fiber-Lab.

The vehicle's sexual organs
were plumbing.

Sex was sensuality,

not that we talked
about sex much,

except for avoiding it.

They didn't explain it when
they changed the terminology,

but all of these
terminology changes

also changed the way
we thought about things.

So, it didn't stimulate
memories.

One of the things
that helps you, and this is--

this was kind of adopted,
in a way,

in the Catholic church,

when nuns and monks
that isolate themselves

in thoughtful
studying conditions,

they take another name.

It helps disassociate them
with the family tree.

Around 1977,
members of Heaven's Gate

effectively became monks
and nuns.

They became monastics.

Remember,
they were celibates,

they were living exclusively
for trying to achieve

sort of this entrance
to heaven, to the Next Level,

and they were given new names.

The system that eventually
was used by Ti and Do

was to use a single-syllable,
effectively, a first name,

and then a shared last name,

which always ended in "ODY".

SAWYER: Ti and Do
said that the Next Level

was adopting us
into their family.

So, the family name
was O-D-Y.

If I were in the group
and my name was Rob,

I would be "RBBODY."

Three consonants,
always capitalized--

RBB, and then ODY.

So, all the names
were six letters.

And so, I became SWYODY.

DO: Hi, DVVODY.
There's OLLODY.

ALXODY.
There's VRNODY.

STMODY.
DVDODY.

ANLODY.
DSTODY.

JWNODY.
GLDODY.

We call him TLLODY

because he's a little taller
than LGGODY.

"ODY" is a diminutive,

so it means
"a little member,"

and that TLLODY or STRODY

were little members
of the Kingdom of Heaven.

It's like the diminutive
for God,

and they're all on their way
to becoming gods.

SAWYER: And that when
we became adults,

they would drop the "Y,"

so we'd be the family of Od,

which is like a little
Next Level humor,

because we were kind of odd.

ROBERT: They began
wearing uniforms,

and they had a unisex look.

Very short hair,
the women wore no makeup.

They had slacks, tennies,
shirts that they wore,

buttoned clear to the top,
long-sleeved.

If you had a look
that you were attached to,

if you'd worn a beard, you know,
for years and years,

you should get rid of all that
and adopt a new appearance

in the same way
that you took a new name,

because those were all things

that symbolized
your identity as a human.

BENJAMIN:
Members of Heaven's Gate
didn't see themselves as robotic

or having to live
within an oppressive system.

They really saw themselves
as living and enjoying it.

I remember I talked
to one ex-member

who said, "Actually, it was--

"the best part of my life
was when I was with the Class.

I had the most--
I had the greatest growth."

And I think they even used
the word "fun".

Nothing here strikes me as fun.

But I suppose if you're in--
if you're in it

with a group
of several dozen other people,

and you're all working together,
and you think you're doing it

for a greater good,

perhaps that's what...
that's what is so meaningful.

DO: It's not that I enjoy
being the instrument

of giving out these procedures.

But these students love it,
they've seen the value.

It does not restrict them,
it frees them.

But you have to have been there

to know what
we're talking about.

Otherwise, you can
easily doubt it.

Well, one thing
you have to consider,

what we as individuals
wanted to become.

I think everyone in this Class
wanted something

more than the human world
had to offer.

They were seeking
some type of goodness,

some type of rightness that
they did not feel in this world.

I'm seeing people
actually develop

into what I always
wanted to believe

they could develop into.

And it's like I want to go out

and put headlines
on all the newspapers

saying it's possible
to overcome your humanness,

'cause I'm seeing it happen.

[music]

JANJA: Having that kind
of discipline,

and struggling through it,

and knowing that you're all
struggling through it together,

creates this sense of family,

which is part of what binds
people to these groups.

And when you think about years
and years and years of that,

that's what makes it
so difficult for
people to leave.

This is the only world
they know.

It's so hard
not to get choked up

when you talk about this.

But I met the people
that are here.

I met my teachers, Ti and Do,

and I knew that I knew
all of them,

and that they were my family.

And I've been happy
ever since.

I mean, it's been tough.

Anybody who's been honest,
like she said,

you get hit with everything
but the kitchen sink

trying to turn you away,
but it's been wonderful.

And in making the decision
that we made to do this,

we know that we broke hearts,
we know that we hurt people,

and we don't take that lightly.

It-- we didn't want
to hurt anyone.

Unfortunately,
it's the individuals

that these vehicles
cared for the most

that are actually
the greatest threat to us.

BENJAMIN: Ti and Do
were almost paranoid,

to the extent
that they were afraid

they were being tracked
by ex-members, family members.

One of the repercussions is
they were constantly on the move

during the late '70s.

They moved from campground,
to campground, to campground.

ROBERT: They never quit
camping entirely,

but in 1978, they finally
had to move into houses.

Apparently, some members
had inherited some money,

and one of the ex-members
who was close to Bo and Peep

estimated that it was somewhere
between $300,000 and $500,000.

And at that point,
they began renting mansions.

FRANK: My cousin, David,
his dad was the president

of the New England
Phone Company.

And for the first
seven years of the cult,

we lived off of his trust fund.

ROBERT: They liked upscale
suburban neighborhoods,

nice houses, big houses in quiet
upper-middle class areas.

They would move people in,

and none of the neighbors
would know.

We would live
15 people in a house,

and there was designated people
that could go outside.

And the same people were seen
outside all the time,

so it appeared as though
there was just a few people

living in a house.

[Frank speaking]

BENJAMIN: This is Marshall Herff
Applewhite's FBI report.

There's a letter
from a concerned parent

which was sent to a congressman,
forwarded to the FBI.

And the FBI
dutifully responded

and said "there's really
not much we can do

about this group,
they're consenting adults."

Do wasn't worried
about the government

so much as family members
intervening.

NARRATOR: The magnetism
of Ti and Do

enticed 19-year-old David,
Nancie Brown's son.

NANCIE BROWN: I couldn't believe
that he was really going off

to do this, and I had to have
some knowledge of why.

I mean, after all, you've spent
18 years raising a child.

He was now 19,
and he said,

"You know, I can't ever
picture myself

"just living the kind of life
that most people

take to be normal."

He left in '75,
and this was now 1980.

Apparently, some parents
and people

have tried to hire
private investigators,

and nobody's been able
to find out

anything about them.

There was a formation
of a parents network

by the late '70s,
led by a woman

named Nancie Brown.

So, any time
there was any news

that the Heaven's Gate members,
or part of Heaven's Gate

was at a certain location,
she would notify folks.

And this is a newsletter
from-- from that network.

There were many of them.
This is just one.

NARRATOR: As the years past
with no word from David,

Nancie Brown feared
for his safety.

NANCIE: I reached
the pit of despair

when the Jonestown news
broke in '79.

And I remember sitting there
watching this horrifying sight

of bodies scattered
around the compound

like crumpled leaves.

It was just this little message
in my heart all the time--

Where is he?
Is he all right?

[sighs]
Is he alive?

Will I ever see him again?

TERRIE NETTLES:
This is '74, '75.

My mom wrote me
once a month.

My mom did all the things
that they weren't allowed to do.

But she never talked
about the group.

All she wanted to do
was talk about

what I was doing in my life.

And I wanted to know
what was going on,

obviously, in her life.

And we even talked
occasionally on the phone.

But the thing
that I didn't like,

was she mentioned that
any time she called me,

Herff was on the other line.

I received a letter
on August 13th, 1982.

She said, "Terrie,
if you are with others,

"please do not let them know
who this is from,

"especially that network woman,
Nancie Brown.

"She is not to be trusted.

"I am well and safe
as of now.

"Sorry I have to be
so secretive,

but that's the way
it is at this time."

I just didn't know
what that meant.

Are you trying
to tell me something?

Is something going on?

BENJAMIN: Ti had been sick,
Bonnie Lu Nettles had been sick.

She had been diagnosed
with cancer,

and she was exhibiting illness.

She had cancer of the eye.

She had her eye removed
and a prosthetic put in.

She never talked about it.

Never mentioned it,
never complained about it.

SAWYER: They went back
to the hospital,

and she had an examination,

and they said that
the cancer was in her liver,

and that she only had
a short time to live,

and they-- they couldn't do
anything for her.

It was only like
two or three weeks

from finding out
to her passing.

We were all devastated.

Most of all, Do.

How could this happen?
It wasn't supposed to happen.

We were all supposed
to graduate together.

TERRIE: When I didn't hear
from her for a while,

I was going every single day
looking for a letter from her.

I came home
from school one day,

and... I got this phone call

from members
in the group.

[phone ringing]

A couple named
Liv and Dick Joslyn.

They wanted to come talk to me
about my mom.

When they showed up,

Liv said something
about my mom

going to the doctor.

She talked
about my mom's eye,

and that she was having
trouble with it.

And... out of the blue,
I just looked up at her,

and I said,
"Mom's dead, isn't she?"

And, um, she said yes.

At first, I mean,
for the first few seconds,

you're in denial, you know,

and is this one of those dreams
I'm having,

or is this a reality?

I just felt like somebody had
ripped my skeleton out of me.

You know, I just--
I just went limp.

I was a total basket case.

I mean, I...
I was in shock.

And I remember
going to bed that night

and... when I woke up
the next morning,

my pillow was soaked,
my hair was wet,

my face was wet.

I had cried
all night long.

These are the death
certificates.

And this was the first time
I... I ever saw

when my mom died.

She died June 19th, 1985.

I found out
March 22nd, 1986,

nine months after the fact.

Ti's last wishes
were to not tell Terrie

about... her death.

But she was able
to talk some

during that time too,
so she could have called Terrie.

But she didn't.

And I know Terrie
has a hard time with that,

and I understand that,
I'm sorry for that.

I'm sure that's very painful.

But Ti was not the same person
as her mother.

It was the same vehicle,

but none of the mind
came into that vehicle.

TERRIE: I wanted to know
more about my mom.

I tried to contact
Herff Applewhite,

and he wouldn't return
any of my calls.

He wouldn't
respond to anything.

I was constantly fighting
to get answers.

And then all of a sudden,
he sent me a--

an audio cassette,

and he talked about everything
but what I wanted to hear.

DO: Terrie, this is Do.

I'm a bit embarrassed
and awkward

about the fact
that I didn't contact you

when Ti left her vehicle,
or died,

or however
you want to look at it.

I was so torn between trying
to comply with her wishes.

I guess, in honesty,
I was so awkward,

that I might have been chicken

and not just taken it
into my hands

and talking to you.

This task and her mission
for the Kingdom of Heaven

was everything to her.

She felt that this
was the only consistent way

to even end her part
of the task.

I think if you'll think
about that,

you can understand it,
and certainly don't grieve

in thinking that she didn't
want you to know

because of lack of love
for you, or anything,

'cause that certainly
wasn't true.

I'm going to pray
for your release

from this suffering.

The suffering...
[clears throat]

[choking up]
...has been very great for me.

And I want you to...

[clears throat]
...know that I love you,

and I wish I could do
more for you.

TERRIE: It hurt me to hear
the emotion in his voice,

because I understood it.

But at the same time,
this was my mother.

This was a friend to him,
a spiritual partner,

or whatever
you want to call it.

It-- it's just not
the same thing.

I found out later
that my mom lived in Dallas

not far from where
I was staying at the time.

I had moved to Huntsville
for college.

I was four hours away.

I should have been there
when she was sick

to hold her hand,
to tell her I loved her,

to-- whatever I needed to say.

You know, you took all that
away from me.

[interviewer speaking]

No.
Nobody seemed to be interested.

Well, my doctor wanted me
to see a psychiatrist

because I was having...

I gotta stop
for a second.

DO: I feared being left
with the responsibility

of the mission
with my partner being gone.

But I can remember
in the first few weeks

that I met Ti,
that Ti said,

"Why do I feel
that this is something

that I'm to give to you,
and then I'm to go back?"

And I didn't know what
she was talking about.

But I know now.

Do's response
was deep heartbreak.

Grief.

And... to the point
where he questioned...

whether he should continue
the Class.

So, since Erika and I
were both visiting Calgary,

'cause that's where
our parents lived--

Do decided we should
travel together

as check partners.

Of course,
the understanding was

that that's all we were.

When we stopped
for a layover,

and we're sitting
on the same bench

in kind of a secluded area...

I had this
overpowering desire

just to give her a hug.

That was the first time
we had touched

in... about 10 years.

I just felt,
let's run away together.

If she had said,
"Let's stop this...

I've had enough,
let's go do something else,"

I would have said yes.

- Oh!
- You want me to do some work?

[inaudible chatter]

Let's continue with the tour.

NANCIE: He looked well.

Of course, it was absolutely
marvelous seeing him.

Phone calls are nice,
letters are nice,

but to actually...

to see and hug him,
and talk to him,

and spend the couple
of days together

was... very-- very important
to me, and to all of us.

ROBERT: And these parents
literally didn't know

if their kids
were dead or alive,

because they had not heard
anything from them

since '75.

NANCIE: All right!
[cheers and applause]

ROBERT: One woman I talked to
described her son

when he came back
on Mother's Day,

she said she was shocked
because he was clean-cut,

he was polite, he was really
helpful around the house.

Called up his old friends,
went out with them,

stuck around for two weeks,
and then all of a sudden

said, "Well, it's time to go.

"I can't tell you
where I'm gonna go,

"what I'm gonna be doing,

and I'll be back
in touch again sometime."

And then, he vanished.

If they were really
these other beings

that weren't
really in this body,

this body had nothing
to do with them,

why then did she die
a very human death of cancer?

So, this was one
of the snafus that--

that Do had to deal with.

That was a very tough one
for me,

because Ti and I
thought that--

we just knew, it seemed,
that we would both be here

for the full duration
of the task,

and it didn't occur to us
that one might leave

prior to the other one leaving.

One of the most powerful forces
in religion

suddenly reared its head there.

It's what we call
cognitive dissonance--

the moment in which
an event occurs

that seems to undermine
your very theology,

your very doctrine.

BENJAMIN: The basic idea

of Heaven's Gate
up to that moment

was that you would chemically
and biologically

transform your body
from being a human being

into becoming
a Next Level alien,

and then you would physically
get on board the UFO,

which would sail off
into Heaven.

What happens
when Bonnie Lu Nettles,

when Ti dies?

The vehicle broke down,

and humans would say,
well, the vehicle died.

And so, how can you say
she left her vehicle?

The explanation
which was given to members

is that it looked to us

like she was suffering
from cancer,

but in fact,
her Next Level consciousness

burned up her human body.

Cognitive dissonance
comes in.

Your faith system shifts
to make room for the event.

It tested me,
it tested the Class,

and we're all 10 feet taller
because of it.

REZA: There is a parallel here

with Jesus
and the Jesus movement.

Jesus' followers believed
that Jesus was the Messiah,

according to the Jewish
definition of the Messiah.

But there was a huge problem.

A dead Messiah is,
by definition,

no longer the Messiah.

And so, Christianity
didn't just go away.

They fundamentally redefined
what "Messiah" means.

Messiah is not
an earthly King,

it's a heavenly King.

The Kingdom
that the Messiah creates

isn't on this world,
it's on the next world.

Understand that no one had ever
said these things before.

And for Heaven's Gate,
that big shift

would be the idea
that if it happened to her,

it might happen to others
as well.

Ti's thinking was, if that's
what you have in mind for me,

and if that's what
you have in mind for Do,

and for the Class, then
that's-- that's what we want.

When Nettles dies,
it undermines the entire point

of the bodily transformation.

And now, it's a spiritual
transformation.

We're going to leave
our bodies behind.

So, in a strange way,
the tragedy of Heaven's Gate,

the suicide of all those people,

is a direct result
of the unexpected death

of one of the co-founders.

What it meant to me...

even though it still
breaks my heart...

to recall the experience...

it very swiftly

and very solidly

put me on firmer ground

in relationship
to my Heavenly Father.

It put me in a better
relationship with Ti

than I had before
she left her vehicle.

I know that Ti is still,
to this day,

my primary,
if not my total link

with our Heavenly Father.

BENJAMIN: During her lifetime,
she's called the Older Member.

He deferred to her,
and Do also said

that his connection
to the Next Level

went through Ti.

After her death,
Do looked to her

as still guiding him,
but now from outer space.

Ti is my Older Member.

Ti is my Heavenly Father.

And in fact, it's no more than
a decade after her death

that Do publicly
declares himself

Jesus returned to Earth,
and declares that Ti

was the one known
as God the Father.

ROBERT: Even though
she was raised as a Baptist,

Bonnie was involved in
metaphysical teaching.

She's involved
in New Age ideas,

all of this stuff

that must have just
driven Do crazy,

because Marshall Herff
Applewhite, Senior,

was a very prominent
Presbyterian minister,

and by all accounts,

Herff really wanted
to emulate him

and become a minister
just like he had done.

And if you read
the Heaven's Gate book

that came out much later,

Do is, like, really harsh
on the New Age.

And New Age is, like,
that's one of the big ways

that Lucifer is trying
to get his hooks in humans.

After Ti dies,

the message becomes
much more biblical,

moving away from Ti's ideas
to more Do's thinking.

DO: We see the world.

We see the world
as the anti-truth,

the Antichrist.

The world will see us
as anti-truth, Antichrist.

We know that
that is inevitable.

SAWYER: Ti gave us instructions
before she died, of course,

to make our commitment to Do.

Ti trusted Do 100%.

Do came to a meeting,

maybe the second, or third,
or fourth meeting

after Ti left,
and... he said,

"There's something
different about me.

I want to play
a little game."

[people chattering]
That's right.

That's right.

[chattering continues]

ROBERT: Do called everybody
together one day and says,

"Well, I've got a little test
for you.

If you had $100
that you could spend

for something for yourself,
what would you buy?

Apparently, it just drove
everybody absolutely bonkers.

Here, they've been
in the process

of giving everything up,

they have no personal
possessions at all.

And all of a sudden,
$100 to buy something

only for yourself,
what would it be?

DO: Now, when you become
a candidate

for our Father's Kingdom,

our Father then says,
"I'm a jealous god.

"For a period of time,
you might have thought

"you loved me more than
you loved those other things.

"But if you're gonna get
into my house,

you have to love only me."

ROBERT: What it was,
the answer,

was a very simple gold band,
a cheap $100 gold band.

A wedding ring.

["He Needs Me" playing]

♪ And all at once I knew,
I knew at once ♪

♪ I knew he needed me ♪

ROBERT:
Herff doesn't have Bonnie

as his support system anymore,

so the Class itself
becomes his support system.

♪ I knew he needed me ♪

FRANK: Do became
even more obsessed

with control
after she passed on.

And so, he had
a little ceremony

to where we were marrying him.

♪ He needs me, he needs me,
he needs me, he needs me ♪

♪ He needs me, he needs me ♪

The instruction
was to come up one by one.

When I got to be the one
to go up to him,

he was sweating profusely.

I could see the sweat
on his brow,

and he kissed me
on the forehead,

and he was weeping.

♪ It's like a dime a dance,
I'll take a chance ♪

♪ I will because
he needs me ♪

SAWYER: He was giving birth.

♪ Maybe it's because
he's so alone ♪

He was birthing students
into the Next Level.

♪ ...had a home ♪

♪ He needs me, he needs me,
he needs me, he needs me ♪

♪ He needs me, he needs me ♪

ROBERT: Up until this point,
the focus was on the message

or the process
of overcoming.

But what happens
with this marriage ceremony

is now the loyalty is shifting
from the message

to the messenger.

That is why ever after that,

when you see people
in the group,

if there's a picture
that shows their hands,

they'll have wedding rings on.

[music ends]

BENJAMIN: It is a question
that will not go away.

What kind of messenger
could convince 38 followers

to commit suicide
alongside of him?

RIO DIANGELO:
Do was a wonderful person.

He was very helpful,
a very good teacher,

and we had a lot
of reverence for him.

Here's the problem--

once people's lives
are conformed

to predictable patterns
through peer pressure--

and you saw the people,
they were dressed the same way,

they sported the same kinds
of haircuts--

virtually anything is possible.

Ti and Do never...

were out to con anybody.

If they conned anybody,
they conned themselves first.

REPORTER: Miss Lalich,
let me start with you.

Do you believe
this was suicide or murder?

I believe it was murder.

♪ You don't own me ♪

♪ I'm not just one
of your many toys ♪

♪ You don't own me ♪

♪ Don't say I can't go
with other boys ♪

♪ And don't tell me
what to do ♪

♪ Don't tell me what to say ♪

♪ And please,
when I go out with you... ♪♪