Heaven's Gate Research Articles

Protective mechanisms of Tuina therapy against lipopolysaccharide-induced fever in young rabbits based on untargeted metabolomics analysis.

To investigate the effect of Tuina on the plasma metabolites of lipopolysaccharide-induced febrile in infant rabbits. Twenty-four infant New Zealand rabbits were selected and randomly divided into three groups: saline, model, and Tuina. The fever model was established by injecting LPS intravenously through the ear margin vein in the model group and Tuina group, respectively. The modeling was considered successful when the anal temperature increased by 0.5℃ or above within 1 h. In the Tuina group, six Tuina techniques (i.e., opening Tianmen / the heaven gate, pushing Kangong / the superciliary arch, kneading Taiyang and the prominent bone behind the ears, clearing Tianheshui, spine pinching) that alleviate fever were performed on the young rabbits 1 h after the modeling, whereas the model and saline groups were not given Tuina treatment, with the real-time anal temperature monitored during the experiment. The plasma was taken 3 h after the modeling for liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) untargeted metabolomics study. Our results showed a fever-reducing effects of Tuina therapy on lipopolysaccharide-induced fever in young rabbits, as indicated by a significantly lower anal temperature, maximum rise in body temperature, and body response index at 2 and 3 h after modeling in the Tuina group compared to the model group, with reductions in the PGE2 expression observed in the blood and hypothalamus. The differential metabolites including riboflavin, nicotinamide N-oxide, porphobilinogen, 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid, gamma-aminobutyric acid, and lysoPC (16:1 (9Z)/0:0) were found following the Tuina intervention. Tuina primarily involves glycine-serine-threonine, arginine-proline, porphyrin-chlorophyll, pyrimidine, primary bile acid biosynthesis, and cyanoamino acid metabolic pathways. Tuina therapy has proven to be effective in reducing body temperature and down-regulating PGE2 expression in LPS-induced febrile young rabbits, with its mechanism of fever-reducing action possibly associated with the changes in plasma metabolites and metabolic pathways.

Urban Taxi Slogans: The People's Arts

Urban Taxi Slogans: The People's Arts

Believing in Bits: Digital Media and the Supernatural

Believing in Bits: Digital Media and the Supernatural

Communes in America, 1975–2000 by Timothy Miller

Reviewed by: Communes in America, 1975–2000 by Timothy Miller Devin R. Lander (bio) Communes in America, 1975–2000 By Timothy Miller . Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2019. 280 pages, 6″ x 9″. $65.00 cloth, $29.95 paper. Timothy Miller, professor of religious studies at the University of Kansas, has done more important work on the history of intentional communities in the United States than any historian I can think of. Communes in America, 1975–2000 is the third and final book in his series that examines the history and relevance of American communes from 1900 to 2000 and includes the previous volumes The Quest for Utopia in Twentieth-Century America (1998) and The '60s Communes: Hippies and Beyond (1999). Collectively they represent a groundbreaking approach to the subject by deeply mining the archival record, oral history, and quantitative methods. According to the Foundation for Intentional Community's database, there are currently forty-seven "established" (including four or more adults in residence and in existence for at least two years) intentional communities in New York State, which is more than any other state except California, Washington, and Oregon. 1 New York has a long and varied history as the home of prominent intentional communities ranging from the Shakers settling in New Lebanon in the late eighteenth century, the Oneida Community's founding in 1848, and the establishment of the turn-of-the-century communal art colonies of Roy-croft in East Aurora and Byrdcliffe near Woodstock, to the Gate Hill Cooperative avant-garde artists' commune cofounded by John Cage in 1954 near Stony Point and Timothy [End Page 392] Leary's psychedelic commune residing on a 2,500-acre estate in the village of Millbrook, all of which are touched upon in Miller's series. His most recent work also notes the important communal Hindu ashrams Shree Muktananda Ashram in the Catskills and Shanti Mandir in Walden, as well as the Buddhist communes Dai Bosatsu Zendo and the Zen Mountain Monastery, also both in the Catskill mountains. The number and variety of intentional communities that called New York State home is truly amazing. In the preface of Communes in America, 1975–2000, Miller outlines his criteria for inclusion in his study, which is consistent with the previous volumes and includes the following four "must haves" that a group must possess to be considered an intentional community: 1. The group must be gathered on the basis of some kind of purpose or vision and not simply just people living together by chance or family ties. 2. The group must live together on property that has some clear physical commonality. 3. The group must have some kind of financial or material sharing. 4. The group must consist of at least five adults who are not related by blood or marriage. Miller adds that to be considered for the study, a group also must have "a sense of being withdrawn or set apart from conventional society," which is why he does not include Native American tribes, which he rightfully defines as being of the conventional society of their time and place, not outside it. Miller also does not include groups such as monasteries or convents belonging to traditional religious institutions. Communes in America, 1975–2000 is broken down into seven thematic chapters and two appendices. Chapters 2 and 3 illustrate how intentional communities reacted and adapted to social and environmental challenges in the larger society through such innovations as cohousing communes and ecovillages. Chapters 4 and 5 are dedicated to intentional communities with a spiritual purpose, and chapter 6 outlines activist and social justice communities, including feminist and LGBTQ groups. Chapter 7 investigates the often negative public perception of intentional communities during the period of 1975–2000 as a result of tragedies such as the mass suicides at Jonestown and Heaven's Gate and the deadly assaults on MOVE and the Branch Davidian compounds. Miller cautions the reader not to paint all intentional communities with the same brush based on these horrifying (but rare) catastrophes. The appendices provide excellent quantitative material drawn from the entire series as well as Miller's other works on the subject. Appendix A uses evidence going back...

Geology ‘far from the madding crowd’, along the northern border of Vietnam

To the north of Hanoi, about a day's drive by car, lies Ha Giang Province, the northernmost region of Vietnam. Ha Giang is remote from the hustle and bustle of daily life, and beyond its eponymous provincial capital towards the border with China, mountains rise quickly to Quan Ba, ‘Heaven's Gate’. The mountains form an uneven landscape of steep‐sided karst rising from deep river‐cut gorges and form a formidable barrier on the northern frontier of Vietnam. Beyond ‘Heaven's Gate’ lies the little travelled region of Dong Van, with its majestic mountains of Palaeozoic strata rising precipitously to the sky. Here, a century ago, the French geologists Henri Mansuy and Jacques Deprat documented early finds of fossils from lower Palaeozoic strata on the border with China.

Introduction

Introduction Bruce (bio) and Ju-Chan Fulton (bio) One of the most intertextual of contemporary Korean fiction writers, Kim Kyung-uk was born in 1971 in Kwangju, South Chŏlla Province. He earned a BA and an MA in English literature and Korean literature, respectively, from Seoul National University and teaches creative writing at Korean National University of Arts. Since his debut in 1993 with the novella "Outsider" (Autsaidŏ), published in Chakka segye (Writers world), he has produced more than a dozen story collections and novels. Kim is evaluated perhaps too facilely by the critics for incorporating elements of popular culture in his works—understandable when we consider the titles of stories and novels such as Morrison Hotel (Morisŭn Hot'el), "Who Killed Kurt Cobain?" (Nu ka K'ŏt'ŭ K'obein ŭl chugyŏnnŭnga?), and "Leslie Cheung Is Dead, You Say?" (Chang Kug-yŏng i chugŏttago?). But the importance of such works extends beyond mere parody to challenge readers to reevaluate cultural icons and stereotypes—a project that is central to modern Korean fiction, to judge from the multiple intertextual fictional renderings of icons from classical Korea, such as Hwang Chin-i, and the many contemporary retellings of some of Korea's best-known folktales, such as "The Woodcutter and the Nymph." Kim is especially interested in how individuals manage to re-invent themselves and/or live double [End Page 11] lives, and in crafting portraits of such characters he reflects writing by both Korean and non-Korean authors. In its gravitas and apocalyptic background "Young Hearts Never Grow Old" (Sonyŏn ŭn nŭkchi annŭnda, 2013), for example, echoes both P'yŏn Hye-yŏng's "Mallow Gardens" (Aoi kadŭn, 2003) and Cormac McCarthy's The Road. The reading therapist in "Dangerous Reading" (Wihŏmhan toksŏ, 2006) resembles the suicide consultant in Kim Yŏng-ha's I Have the Right to Destroy Myself (Na nŭn na rŭl p'agoehal kwŏlli ka itta, 1996) and would be at home in a story by John Cheever. And with his 2007 novel Kingdom of a Thousand Years (Ch'ŏn nyŏn ŭi wangguk), inspired by the story of Hendrik Hamel and his band of castaway Dutch sailors, Kim has reached far back into Chosŏn history for a most unusual tale of adaptation and survival. Kim's interest in intertextuality goes back at least as far as his apprenticeship in creative writing. In his acceptance speech upon being awarded the 2016 Yi Sang Literature Prize for "Ch'ŏnguk ŭi mun" (translated here by Soomin Yoo as "Heaven's Gate"), Kim observed that whenever he is about to submit a work for publication he realizes anew that he is a yŏngwŏnhan chimangsaeng ("forever-aspiring writer") who reads incessantly the works of his peers, regardless of their age. In doing so Kim reverts to the role of reader, understanding that without a readership Korean literature would be like the Titanic, with writers assuming the role of the doomed cruise ship's orchestra, which continued to play on even as the vessel was sinking. In recent years Kim has begun to attract attention among English-language readers. He is now represented in English by "The Queen of Love" (Yŏnae ŭi yŏwang), translated by Ryan Yu in Acta Koreana (2012); "Young Hearts Never Grow Old," translated by Deborah Smith in Azalea 6 (2013); "99%" (thus titled in Korean as well), translated by Jane Lee and Bruce Fulton in World Literature Today (2013); "Dangerous Reading," translated by Brother Anthony in Koreana (2014); God Has No Grandchildren, a collection of his [End Page 12] stories translated by Sunok Kang and Melissa Thomson (2015); and "Spray" (Sŭp'ŭrei), translated by Jason Woodruff in an online feature in Asymptote (2017). The following selection of Kim's writing includes a short essay by the author, translations of two of his stories, and the translation of an excerpt from his most recent novel. "The Mailman, Olivia Hussey, and Robert Redford" (Uch'ebu wa Ollibia Hasse wa Robŏt'ŭ Redŭp'odŭ) is included in his 1999 story collection Pet'i rŭl mannarŏ kada (Off to...

Heaven's gate: America's UFO religion

Heaven's gate: America's UFO religion

Controversial new religions

This book complements Lewis's Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements. The former provides an overview of the state of the field. This volume collects papers on those specific New Religious Movements (NRMs) that have generated the most scholarly attention. With few exceptions, these organizations are also the controversial groups that have attracted the attention of the mass media, often because they have been involved in, or accused of, violent or anti-social activities. Among the movements to be profiled are such groups as the Branch Davidians, Heaven's Gate, Aum Shinrikyo, Solar Temple, Scientology, Falun Gong and many more. The book will function as a reference for scholars, as a text for courses in NRMs, and will also appeal to non-specialists including reporters, law enforcement, public policy makers, and others.

Reading “New” Religious Movements Historically

This article surveys the relationship of the Heaven's Gate movement to the cultural context of science fiction while also engaging broader issues in the retrospective account of violence in new religious movements. Against theories that see violence as the consequence of social isolation and the escalating confusion of representation and reality, I argue that members of Heaven's Gate were not only “tapped in” to the reality outside the group but were markedly self-conscious about their engagement with that reality through the medium of science fiction. Using Heaven's Gate as an example, I propose that we read the concepts espoused by new religious movements in the past not in light of their fate but rather as imbedded in the historical realities in which they originally functioned in a meaningful and deliberate fashion.

Heaven's Gate. Postmodernity and popular culture in a suicide group. Edited by George D. Chryssides. (Ashgate New Religions.) Pp. xi+215+2 colour frontispieces. Farnham–Burlington, Vt: Ashgate, 2011. £50. 978 0 7546 6374 4

Heaven's Gate. Postmodernity and popular culture in a suicide group. Edited by George D. Chryssides. (Ashgate New Religions.) Pp. xi+215+2 colour frontispieces. Farnham–Burlington, Vt: Ashgate, 2011. £50. 978 0 7546 6374 4 - Volume 63 Issue 4

National parks in the service of nation building: the pioneering work of Lipa Yahalom and Dan Zur in Israel

… From the slopes of the Lebanon to the Dead Sea,we will worship you with plowsWe will plant thee and build thee,we will make thee very beautiful.(Morning Song by Natan Alterman) In 1998, on the ce...

Heaven's Gate: Postmodernity and Popular Culture in a Suicide Group – Edited by George Chryssides

Heaven's Gate: Postmodernity and Popular Culture in a Suicide Group – Edited by George Chryssides

Heaven's Gate. Postmodernity and Popular Culture in a Suicide Group by George D. Chryssides, ed.

Heaven's Gate: Postmodernity and Popular Culture in a Suicide Group by George D. Chryssides, ed.

1726.2 Ballplaying and Boston Common

Sam. Hirst got up betime in morning, and took Ben Swett with him and went into [Boston] Common play Wicket.1Since 1634, Common has been celebrated as the outdoor stage on which many characteristic dramas of local life have been enacted.2 One such drama-cited in Protoball 1856.20 and 1858.35-was duel between Massachusetts version of baseball and that of New York. 1856 Olympic Club of conducted trial matches of Massachusetts game on Common3; in 1858, Common hosted first New England match by New York rules.4 Those games, unambiguously baseball, were culmination of two centuries of ball-play.Protoball 1700c.2 refers much earlier played on Common. Two histories present identical assertions, but neither gives source: Mary Farwell Ayer (1903) and Samuel Barber (1916) write that in late 1600s and early 1700s favorite games were and flinging bullet [bullit, in Barber's version, probably original spelling].5 (The latter involved throwing cannonballs. We know less about 17th century wicket.) Protoball 1700c.2 Protoball 1858.35, therefore, encompass ballplaying from New York game.Evidence that wicket was played in before 1700 comes from Cotton Mather's autobiographical manuscript Paterna. Born in 1663, Mather recalled that he began preaching at an Age wherein I See Many Lads playing their marbles or in street.6 Mather's remembrance places Wickets as early as mid-1670s. The name wicket could refer stumps in cricket, or arise from meaning well known time, i.e., small opening in fortified gate, large enough duck through. The term was often used as metaphor convey narrowness of opening through which one might enter heaven's gate. We don't see (or Wicket) again until fifty years later. his 1726 diary, in an entry that qualifies as primary evidence, Samuel Sewall expressed displeasure when his grandson, then 20, skipped morning prayers to play Wicket on Common.7H. L. Mencken defined Puritanism as haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. Historians have painted more nuanced portrait of colonial attitudes toward pleasure and recreation, which, in moderation, had their place. If ball-play broke Sabbath, however, Reverend or Magistrate brought out his diary take note8; such disapproving voices have dominated historical record.One need not be Puritan regard life in New England as struggle: Winters were long; summers short. A man who stood watch on Beacon Hill in 1630s would have gazed east upon Atlantic and west into wilderness. His emotions cannot be known, but exhilaration and terror would have been reasonable. Would he have scouted for a place leavel enough play ball?9 Not yet, I suspect. A ceaseless labor awaited him, from which no one was exempt, not even his children.Some children were fortunate enough go school. 1635, Public Latin School opened on north side of School Street. Where students played then isn't clear, but Common beckoned. As conditions of life improved, and grandfathers and fathers pushed back wilderness, children had more of chance play. Of schoolboys in 1700s, Edward Ellsworth Brown wrote, In few hours that could be given out-door sports, they had skating and coasting in winter, and in summer swimming, and variety of games, including some with bat and ball.10 More schools started, more schoolboys flooded onto Common as classes let out. time, Latin's was that corner of Common lying between path from West Street Old Elm, and Park Street and Beacon Street.11As long as anyone could remember, Boston Common was playground of School Boys.12 1831, young Samuel Gray Ward observed, There are great many boys all time on Common now playing bat and ball. …

Artist's Statement: R&R (. . . &R)

Artist's Statement:R&R (. . . &R) Susanne Slavick (bio) Responding to the ongoing disasters of war and the policies and conditions that lead to them, artists can condone or condemn. The challenge lies in finding a constructive stance, especially when confronting the aftermath of each war. Decimated and displaced peoples, ruined infrastructures and scorched earth follow each armed conflict. How can a place or people cohere after trauma and calamity? These works from the R&R ( . . . &R) series counter art-historical and contemporary media representations of war with interventions both remorseful and restorative. The series' title converts the military abbreviation for "rest and relaxation" to words like "regret and restitution." In face of perpetual carnage I cull images of regeneration from the art and architecture of the invader and the invaded. Referring to scenes of construction and cultivation from the workshops of Persian miniaturist Bihzâd to the court arts of Safavid Iran, I paint images of resurgence over scenes of devastation across Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Middle East. Sources for these scenes are "documentary" photographs found on the Internet—from military and news media sites, FLICKR and Webshots, and blogs by soldiers and others in the midst of war. Recognizing and reconstituting what has been decimated, my palette begins to revive and replace the anonymous and ashen monochrome of rubble. Creativity is one measure of our seemingly miraculous recovery from incomprehensible and self-inflicted destruction. R&R ( . . . &R) embodies one artist's response as witness, critic, and agent of empathic unsettlement.1 Art is basically a generative force. Creativity is inherently iterative and redemptive. These gestures of debt and discovery are my attempts at renewal among the rubble and undoing some of the damage. Confronting and considering the cultural heritage of peoples and places under attack reminds us of what we stand to lose—the humanity of those we are urged to revile and [End Page 93] the humanity of those we revere. Ignoring this would leave us with no culture at all. Susanne Slavick susanne slavick is an artist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon. She graduated from Yale University, subsequently studied at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, and earned her MFA at the Tyler School of Art in Rome and Philadelphia. Recent works have traveled to the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, the Andy Warhol Museum, the Chicago Cultural Center, and the McDonough Museum of Art in Ohio. Her book Out of Rubble, featuring over thirty international artists who respond to the aftermath of war, was published in 2011. Note 1. Dominick La Capra, Writing History, Writing Trauma (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 41. [End Page 94] Click for larger view View full resolution Fig. 1. Heaven's Gate, 2009, gouache on archival digital print/Hahnemühle paper, 14 x 12 in. The clouds above a charred automobile in Baghdad are derived from a Persian battle scene illustration with the hero Faramurz scattering the troops of the king of Kabul. The persistence and futility of violence across nations and empires are reiterated in the blasted-out windows and doors that open to a bleached void. Is it the blinding light of paradise, the motive for so much "martyrdom," or nothing but a dead end? [End Page 95] Click for larger view View full resolution Fig. 2. Rocking Horse, 2010, gouache on archival digital print/Hahnemühle paper, 12 x 13.5 in. A horseman derived from a sixteenth-century painting by Qadimi is mounted above the wreckage in a southern Iraqi landscape, suggesting how we continue to treat war as a game, from cradle to grave. [End Page 96] Click for larger view View full resolution Fig. 3. Restore (Sarafiya Star over the Tigris), 2006, gouache on archival digital print/ Hahnemühle paper, 6 x 8.125 in. A thirteenth- or fourteenth-century Iranian tile design spans the gap of Baghdad's al-Sarafiya Bridge that was destroyed by a truck bomb in 2007. Pairing the elegant decorative geometry of Islamic design with the contemporary geometry of engineering points to the choices we make, how we direct our expertise and ingenuity. [End Page 97] Click for...

Extraterrestrial Biblical Hermeneutics and the Making of Heaven's Gate

The new religious movement popularly called Heaven's Gate emerged in the mid-1970s. This article argues that its two co-founders, Marshall Herff Applewhite (1932–1997) and Bonnie Lu Nettles (1928–1985), employed what I call extraterrestrial biblical hermeneutics in constructing the theological worldview of Heaven's Gate. This hermeneutics developed out of the New Age movement and its broader interest in ufology, extraterrestrial life, and alien visitation, and postulates a series of close encounters and alien visitations. Borrowing from its New Age and ufological origins, the hermeneutics assumes an extraterrestrial interest in assisting human beings to self-develop, as well as a technological materialism antithetical to supernaturalist readings of the Bible. As I argue here, this extraterrestrial biblical hermeneutics led Applewhite and Nettles to read the Bible as supporting a message of alien visitation, self-transformation, and ultimately extraterrestrial technological rapture.

Bible Lessons with Raël: On Religious Appropriation in ET-Inspired Religions

As an introduction to Nova Religio's special issue on ET-inspired (UFO) religions, this article maintains that despite less media attention since the furor surrounding the Heaven's Gate suicides, ET-inspired religions are still active. Moreover, increasing speculation linking extraterrestrials to 2012 apocalyptic scenarios, coupled with a significant percentage of the population who believe in extraterrestrial visitation, seems to indicate that purveyors of ET-inspired religious perspectives will continue to have a market. Rather than focusing upon the "strange" and seemingly "bizarre" nature of these religious groups, the articles in this special issue endeavor to demonstrate how members of ET-inspired religions appropriate materials and theological ideas from widely-accepted mainstream religious traditions. This article maintains that the value of such an approach lies in bridging the gulf between normalized religious perspectives and the marginalized religious "other."

UFO Religions – Beginnings and Main Forms

This paper looks at UFO religions, and considers the major factors that have played a role in the emergence and development of these alternative religious movements - from reports of close encounters of the third and fourth kinds and science fiction production, to alternative ideological elaborations of contacts with extraterrestrial worlds. It looks at the basic theological premises, iconography, activities, and, more generally, cultural precepts of several UFO religious movements (the Aetherius Society, Heaven's Gate, Unarius, the Raelian movement). Attention is drawn to the religious connotations of UFO discourse, and its motifs of "otherness" and "supernaturalness". In addition, the relation between the roles and themes promoted within the contactee movement and the accounts of persons claiming to have been abducted by aliens is explored. Finally, the paper highlights the key existential questions and identifies the themes and motifs with which UFO religionists present themselves to the public.

The Secrets of the Kingdom: Religion and Concealment in the Bush Administration. By Hugh B. Urban

Hugh Urban built his scholarly career primarily through studies of South Asian Tantra, the cultural dynamics of Tantra's increasing profile in the West, and other forms of religion that stress occult aspects of sexual magic, including neo-paganism and Satanism. In recent years, he has widened his attention to additional religions in which secret knowledge plays a prominent role, including Scientology and Heaven's Gate. Urban's latest book brings this expertise to bear on a study of how the George W. Bush administration has used “religion and concealment.” This innocuous-sounding shorthand may itself conceal part of Urban's goal, because he intends a highly damning critique of Bush and his religious–political allies based how they have approached two issues. The first is their use of religion—how Bush's political power base includes a prominent place for conservative fundamentalists and neoconservative religious people, as well as how Bush draws on religious rhetoric and self-understanding. The second is how Bush has operated in relation to a nexus of issues concerned with controlling information: legal and illegal surveillance, propaganda based on half-truths and deliberate lies (and/or the use of narratives and “spin” that collapse the distinction between truths and lies), collusion with a highly centralized and biased corporate media, use of torture, enabling elites to pursue hidden agendas (as opposed to deliberating in democratic and transparent ways) when deciding public policies related to the environment and war, appealing to executive privilege and national security to cover up unpopular and/or criminal activities, and the like. “Secrecy” as a shorthand term for this nexus of issues is not wrong, but it could be misleading because the core issues boil down to the control of knowledge and use of lies in the service of elite power agendas.

Free will

Free will