Heaven’s Gate And How The Cult Self-Destructed
Lucky8 ProductionFrank Lyford spent 18 years in Heaven’s Gate — and lost the love of his life to the famous cult.
“Being in the Heaven’s Gate cult was an experience in which I gave my power away on all levels,” said survivor Frank Lyford. “I had to wake up to the fact that I had given that power away before I could wake up to the fact that I could take it back.”
Lyford left the cult in 1993, a few years before the group’s infamous mass suicide shocked America in 1997. In total, 39 bodies were discovered in the cult’s Rancho Santa Fe compound. They included Lyford’s friends, his cousin, and Erika Ernst — the love of his life.
Founded by self-described prophet Marshall Applewhite, the Heaven’s Gate cult convinced followers that they had to free their mortal souls to board a spaceship flying in the wake of the Hale-Bopp comet. This aerial ark would take them to “The Next Level” — an androgynous alien planet.
As recently as 2019, Lyford admitted that he still thinks about the famous cult. And the images of his dead friends — found covered in purple shrouds, wearing matching Nike sneakers, with plastic bags over their heads — haunt him to this day.
Anne Fishbein/Sygma/Getty ImagesMembers of the Heaven’s Gate sect posing with its manifesto in 1994.
“I knew it was the same group I was a part of, so it was a very emotional time for me, from the standpoint of feeling the loss of all of my friends who I had been with for 18 years,” he said.
Fortunately for Lyford, he avoided the same fate as his peers by defecting from the famous cult. Nonetheless, it wasn’t easy, as his future prospects seemed bleak. All he’d known for 18 dedicated years of devotion were Applewhite’s prophecies, his friendships, and his relationship with Ernst.
“It was this deep, gut-felt misgiving of remaining in the group, remaining in the cult,” he said. “I couldn’t express it at the time and I didn’t know what my life would look like — what it’d be like adjusting to life outside of the group — I just knew I couldn’t remain in the cult anymore.”
Lyford returned to his parents’ home in Canada for some much-needed neutrality and peace. But two days after escaping Heaven’s Gate, he received a harrowing call from the woman he loved. She begged him to return, while he tried to get her to leave.
But for true believers like Ernst, leaving was not an option. Lyford explained that the cult’s goal “was, in effect, ascension to a higher level of existence.” As such, Ernst disregarded Lyford’s advice that she should leave. The call ended unsuccessfully. And four years later, Ernst was dead.
“If I were back on that call with her right now, I would be more emphatic about her leaving,” Lyford said.
When news of the mass suicide reached him, Lyford was emotionally shattered.
“My initial response was, ‘Okay, they’ve gone and done it,'” he recalled. “My thought was, ‘Okay, this is the group I was a part of and they finally pulled the trigger on their decision to leave.”
In the end, Lyford has found some semblance of grace amidst the traumatizing experience. While the horrific incident remains a part of him, the most valuable lesson Lyford learned from it seems to have won out.
“We all have a connection to the divine within us, we all have that radio transmitter built in — we don’t need anyone to translate that for us,” he said. “That was the big mistake that we all made, in my mind — it was believing we needed someone else to tell us what our best path should be.”
Famous Cult Abuses Inside The Children Of God
Boris Spremo/Toronto Star/Getty ImagesChildren of God members celebrating in Toronto, Canada in 1972.
The Children of God cult was founded in the 1960s, and so it would later become infamous for taking advantage of America’s free love movement to promote relationships that were morally reprehensible. According to the cult, God was love, and love was sex — so members were told that it was okay to have sex with children and their own family members.
Founder David Berg reinterpreted Christianity by warning of a looming apocalypse, with Earthly laws being unimportant to those who courageously believed in him. At one point, this organization boasted a global membership of 25,000 people — with nearly 15,000 of them being children.
Actress Rose McGowan and actor Joaquin Phoenix spent parts of their childhood in the cult before their families left. But not all families got out quickly. As one of the many traumatized survivors, Christina Babin recalled her entire childhood consisting of promoting Berg’s faith — with ruthless guidelines being the only constant in her traumatic life.
Babin recalled being beaten for wetting her bed, witnessing children thrown through windows, and even seeing infants being physically struck. For her, joining hadn’t been a choice, as her mother naively entered the cult before she was born.
“There were no bedtime stories,” Babin recalled. “Instead, we heard gruesome tales of how the world was about to violently end, and how as martyrs we’d either burn at the stake or be shot. We went to sleep in a state of fear.”
While she’s unsure just how old she was when the sexual abuse began — the cult didn’t celebrate birthdays, after all — Babin remembers the organization shifting in a disturbing direction toward sex when she was about 8 years old. Around this time, female cult members were told to have sex with men to convert them.
“Then, in a disturbing twist, a letter arrived from the Children of God leader, ‘Moses David,’ encouraging adults to teach children how to have sex, claiming it was healthy and good,” she said. “And so the sexual abuse began. I was violated in this way from the age of 12 too many times than I care to remember, but sex was encouraged with children who were far younger.”
Wikimedia CommonsDavid Berg in his harrowing element in the 1980s.
At age 12, Babin was sent to a Children of God “reprogramming camp,” then to Japan shortly afterward. By age 15, she was sent to the Philippines. For about a year and a half, she didn’t step outside the cult’s compound property there — as armed guards surrounded the outside.
“In effect, like the other children there, I was a slave,” she said. “It was a place of unchecked abuse and vicious control. The regime was brutal, and there was no talking at all. If you laughed, they’d put tape over your mouth. We were forced to fast for days, they publicly beat us, and children would disappear for months, emerging bruised and silent.”
Furthermore, Babin’s passport had been confiscated by cult authorities — and her distraught mother had no idea where she was. It took 18 months before Babin was allowed to return to the United States.
After meeting her future husband in the cult at age 19, Babin began to ponder life outside. He convinced her to visit his family members a year later. By the time she was 21, she finally mustered the courage to leave — and today raises her own family in peace.
As for David Berg, he reportedly went into hiding around the early 1970s and died “peacefully” at age 75 in 1994.
