My Current Opinion

We all share a sadness for the families of the Heaven's Gate members who committed suicide in southern California a few weeks back. Their losses could only have been made more difficult by the glare of the media and the circus-like coverage. You already know all of the details that you care to.

Cults such as Heaven's Gate are not new phenomena. They have probably always been with us and sometimes they lead to conclusions such as Rancho California or Waco or Jonestown. Otherwise intelligent people who for some reason wish to be led will always be prey to charismatic leaders, be they idealistic, deluded or devious. For me, what sets Heaven's Gate apart from the others is that it has been dubbed by the media a "new age cult." The term was used extensively in print, radio and TV. One woman commentator on NPR's All Things Considered used it early, often and seemingly with a vengeance. But there can be no such thing as a new age cult.

The term "new age cult" is an oxymoron. If you define a cult as an organization that recruits members, systematically takes everything they own, cuts them off from their families and former worlds, takes over their minds and their lives and seeks to be in total control of them, then the new age and the cult phenomenon are virtually antithetical. The essence of the new age is self-responsibility and any teacher or teaching that seeks to bind one, in any way try to control or take advantage of one, is not new age. Any teaching that awakens the individual to higher consciousness and empowerment is new age. No one truly speaking for the new age would ever lead a cult such as Heaven's Gate and no realized new ager would ever belong to one.

Another hallmark of the new age is the unprecedented freedom of religion and thought that has resulted in our having access to almost all of the world's religious, philosophical, psychological and occult teachings. It is in this context that the new age often gets confused with crystals, channels, flying saucers and the like. Yes, it is because of the new age that these ideas are accessible. To be able to take self-responsibility for our own life-path decisions, we must be free to choose from the vast array of thought that is currently available. The Heaven's Gate followers were new age only in that they were free to choose to join and to follow their leader out of their "containers."

And hey: Who among us can prove that they are not on a Mothership behind the comet Hale-Bopp.

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