Joslyn concedes that though he enjoyed himself as a member, it was not always the most stimulating experience. Most of the television shows the cultists watched and the movies they attended had mystical or science-fiction themes: Star Trek, The X-Files, Cocoon, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Wars. ('They told her, 'Jackie, do what you have to do,'' says her daughter Chris.) And for those who did stay, Applewhite made it a point to provide numerous, if carefully chosen, opportunities for relaxation and entertainment. In the case of 72-year-old Jacqueline Leonard of Des Moines, Iowa, who was among the dead at Rancho Santa Fe, the cult allowed her to bend the rules and stay in regular touch with her family. Indeed, Applewhite often reminded his flock that they were free to leave any time they wanted. When that didn't happen, he and Nettles would acknowledge with disarming candor that they had goofed. Helens and various earthquakes - as portents of the moment at which he and his followers would ascend to the Higher Level.

Over the years, he often saw various natural disasters - the eruption of Mount St.

Perhaps shrewdly, Applewhite was flexible in some elements of his doctrine. Though they constantly proselytized, they generally did so discreetly, mainly to avoid the desperate relatives of recruits who often came looking for their vanished loved ones. Over time the cult, which went by different names - Human Individual Metamorphosis and Total Overcomers Anonymous - before settling on Heaven's Gate, managed to save enough from wages and money brought in by new members to afford several expensive campers for their travels.

Sometimes they would seek support from local churches. When not camping in the countryside, they would settle for a time in towns where they earned money working as waitresses or store clerks. Within a few weeks, the cult began to wander, staying in such out-of-the-way places as Medicine Bow National Forest, Wyo., and Bonny Reservoir, Colo. Among them were people who had left their children, some of them just toddlers. Applewhite and Nettles first set up headquarters on the Rogue River in Oregon, with 20 to 30 followers who brought only a few personal belongings. If the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom, as poet William Blake once claimed, the road of abstinence led, in this case, to a series of scruffy campgrounds.

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