The cult from In The Name of God

[Progmetty]

The subject of ITNoG. the bald prophet and the space ship religion. What was the cult's name? I wanna read about it but can't remember the name at all.

[Fuzzboy]

Heavens Gate. Marshall Applewhite was the bald man.

Super interesting stuff imo

[Progmetty]

Thanks!

[Fuzzboy]

No prob. I'm actually quite fond of their view of life/death ect.

I mean, I'd never castrate myself, but yeah...

[Progmetty]

Yeah it does seem like a very interesting read.

[black_biff_stadler]

I mean, I'd never castrate myself, but yeah...

I'll do it for ya.

These were the Nike people right?

[El Barto]

I don't gather that the subject of the song is any one cult.  They reference 3 or 4 that are identifiable (by the body counts) and the general practices of all of them.  Applewhite is clearly shown in the video, but so is Koresh, Jones and [I believe] Shoko Asahara.  While forty sons and daughters might well refer to Heaven's Gate(39 dead),  I don't recall them practicing plural marriages.  In fact,  I think celibacy was a key component, hence the castrations. 

Well crafted song, regardless. 

[millahh]

I don't gather that the subject of the song is any one cult.  They reference 3 or 4 that are identifiable (by the body counts) and the general practices of all of them.  Applewhite is clearly shown in the video, but so is Koresh, Jones and [I believe] Shoko Asahara.  While forty sons and daughters might well refer to Heaven's Gate(39 dead),  I don't recall them practicing plural marriages.  In fact,  I think celibacy was a key component, hence the castrations. 

Well crafted song, regardless.

The "eighty murdered" section points at Koresh pretty clearly.

[Progmetty]

but so is Koresh, Jones and [I believe] Shoko Asahara.

Reading up on them, geez how come I never heard of this stuff!

These were the Nike people right?

Yes but it had nothing to do with what they did or the religion.

[El Barto]

I don't gather that the subject of the song is any one cult.  They reference 3 or 4 that are identifiable (by the body counts) and the general practices of all of them.  Applewhite is clearly shown in the video, but so is Koresh, Jones and [I believe] Shoko Asahara.  While forty sons and daughters might well refer to Heaven's Gate(39 dead),  I don't recall them practicing plural marriages.  In fact,  I think celibacy was a key component, hence the castrations. 

Well crafted song, regardless.

The "eighty murdered" section points at Koresh pretty clearly.

Certainly.  And the hundreds of believers would be the People's Temple.  I'm just not sure about the 40.  If it's actually linked to the unconsenting plural wives, then it's a mystery.  Since it doesn't have to be related to suicide, they might be referring to Warren Jeffs.  Plural wives is of course a Morman term,  and he has at least 40 kiddos (although estimates are closer to 60). 

[Progmetty]

Obviously it was cooler to sing "Forty sons and daughters" than "Thirty nine sons and daughters".

[El Barto]

Obviously it was cooler to sing "Forty sons and daughters" than "Thirty nine sons and daughters".

Oh, absolutely.  The problem is that Heaven's Gate were pretty much asexual.  Sex was a no-no in their world.  Unconsenting plural wives doesn't refer to them. 

A bit of research suggests that Warren Jeffs didn't become known outside of the FLDS until years after ToT, so it wasn't him they were referring to.

[dbrooks22]

I think the plural wives line might have been referring to Wayne Bent (Michael Travesser) and David Koresh, both of whom had multiple wives who were not happy about it.

[Progmetty]

If it wasn't for the murders and the violence that David Koresh fellow would have been hilarious, what a story.

[El Barto]

The pictures in the Budokan performance don't sync up with the lyrics,  but they do show a picture of Warren Jeffs in their cult-leader montage.  The allegations of abuse at XYZ Ranch didn't happen until at least five years after they wrote the album,  but it's clear that they were referring to him with the plural wives line.  Question answered.

If it wasn't for the murders and the violence that David Koresh fellow would have been hilarious, what a story.

Yeah,  Koresh was a real hoot.  Coincidentally,  I spent a while reading up on that unpleasantness just last night. 

"If you are a Branch Davidian, Christ lives on a threadbare piece of land 10 miles east of here called Mount Carmel. He has dimples, claims a ninth-grade education, married his legal wife when she was 14, enjoys a beer now and then, plays a mean guitar, reportedly packs a 9mm Glock and keeps an arsenal of military assault rifles, and willingly admits that he is a sinner without equal."

[Hal Incandenza]

The pictures in the Budokan performance don't sync up with the lyrics,  but they do show a picture of Warren Jeffs in their cult-leader montage.  The allegations of abuse at XYZ Ranch didn't happen until at least five years after they wrote the album,  but it's clear that they were referring to him with the plural wives line.  Question answered.

Under the Banner of Heaven, the Jon Krakauer book, came out in the summer of 2003, and it's really what brought Jeffs into the public eye in a big way for the first time.  So even if Jeffs wasn't the guy they had in mind when the song was written, he'd already become a much more widely known exemplar of plural marriage abuse before the Budokan performance, so they might have used his picture for that reason.

I dunno if any of those lines have to be referring to a specific group or person... sadly, we've had many examples that could serve for each.

Heavens Gate. Marshall Applewhite was the bald man.

I initially read this as Major Applewhite, the old University of Texas quarterback.   

[Dr. DTVT]

I don't think the "sons and daughters" term was to any cult reference, just another way of saying 40 people; because those people were somebody's sons and daughters.

[Progmetty]

^ That was my first impression as well.

[El Barto]

I don't think the song is specifically cult related.  It's clearly covering all manner of religious abuses and perversions.  Still,  several of the quatrains are fairly specific.  I suspect there's something significant to "forty sons and daughters."  Could well be the Heaven's Gate 39, who were of course sons and daughters, or could be something else.  I just don't think it's a random, abstract reference.

[Ħ]

I thought that the song was about the North's crusade mentality during the American Civil War...

[Jaffa]

This thread is very interesting.  I'm stunned to realize how much I didn't know about one of my favorite Dream Theater songs. 

[BlobVanDam]

This thread is very interesting.  I'm stunned to realize how much I didn't know about one of my favorite Dream Theater songs. 

Don't worry, it took me a couple of years before I found out that my favourite song, The Glass Prison, wasn't about some mythical literal glass prison.

[blackngold29]

This thread is very interesting.  I'm stunned to realize how much I didn't know about one of my favorite Dream Theater songs. 

Don't worry, it took me a couple of years before I found out that my favourite song, The Glass Prison, wasn't about some mythical literal glass prison.

How can it be 'mythical literal'?

[LCArenas]

I thought it was about Koresh:

"Saint gone astray with a scepter and a gun"
"Underground religion turning towards the mainstream light"
"Eighty Murdered in the Name of God"
"Justifying violence"

and more lines just led me to believe that.

[BlobVanDam]

This thread is very interesting.  I'm stunned to realize how much I didn't know about one of my favorite Dream Theater songs. 

Don't worry, it took me a couple of years before I found out that my favourite song, The Glass Prison, wasn't about some mythical literal glass prison.

How can it be 'mythical literal'?

That can work (should have been a comma between those btw). It's mythical because obviously it would have to be fantasy, and it's literal because it would be a prison made of glass, instead of the metaphor that it actually is.
The point is, I was hilariously wrong about the meaning of one of my favourite songs.

[Jaffa]

This thread is very interesting.  I'm stunned to realize how much I didn't know about one of my favorite Dream Theater songs. 

Don't worry, it took me a couple of years before I found out that my favourite song, The Glass Prison, wasn't about some mythical literal glass prison.

Thanks for trying to make me feel better.  =D

[Progmetty]

That can work (should have been a comma between those btw). It's mythical because obviously it would have to be fantasy, and it's literal because it would be a prison made of glass, instead of the metaphor that it actually is.
The point is, it made sense before the smoke cleared.

FTFY 

[ZirconBlue]

I thought it was about Koresh:

"Saint gone astray with a scepter and a gun"
"Underground religion turning towards the mainstream light"
"Eighty Murdered in the Name of God"
"Justifying violence"

and more lines just led me to believe that.

Parts of the song are about Koresh.  Other parts are about other people/groups.

[El Barto]

The 80 certainly refers to the Branch Davidians.  What intrigues me is murdered.  Quite striking, in fact.  Leaves an intentional ambiguity to who's to blame. 

[gmillerdrake]

The 80 certainly refers to the Branch Davidians.  What intrigues me is murdered.  Quite striking, in fact.  Leaves an intentional ambiguity to who's to blame.

Most definatley. If anyone is curious as to finding out the answer to that question, I'd suggest searching out the documentary named 'Rules of Engagment'. Very interesting and there are a TON of FACTS that were never presented to the American public for reasons that are CLEARLY obvious as you watch the Senate hearings and judicial proceedings stemming from the Waco event.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist or anything like that...but after I watched that documentary I was pretty flippin' ticked off.

[El Barto]

The 80 certainly refers to the Branch Davidians.  What intrigues me is murdered.  Quite striking, in fact.  Leaves an intentional ambiguity to who's to blame.

Most definatley. If anyone is curious as to finding out the answer to that question, I'd suggest searching out the documentary named 'Rules of Engagment'. Very interesting and there are a TON of FACTS that were never presented to the American public for reasons that are CLEARLY obvious as you watch the Senate hearings and judicial proceedings stemming from the Waco event.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist or anything like that...but after I watched that documentary I was pretty flippin' ticked off.

I'm familiar with RoE, and thought it suffered from the same problems as most conspiratorial docs.  The Frontline was much better.  I actually thought about starting a thread on that little incident in PR, but blew it off.

[gmillerdrake]

I'm familiar with RoE, and thought it suffered from the same problems as most conspiratorial docs.  The Frontline was much better.  I actually thought about starting a thread on that little incident in PR, but blew it off.

PM sent regarding this topic 

[Tick]

[Hprog]

This one is an awesome song, by the way 

I was lucky to listen to it live in 2009