Some four years ago a group of fascinating fliers began appearing around
Portland Oregon announcing a meeting for our LAST CHANCE TO ADVANCE TO
THE LEVEL BEYOND HUMAN. They were on legalsized sheets and PACKED with
typesetting, very dense and leftbrained. (Specimens are on file. No you may
not.) Naturally the wife and I were thrilled and planned to attend. The
meeting was held in the conference room of a suburban branch library,
windowless with tan cinderblock walls and a row of metal lockers for
decoration. Strangely appropriate decor it turned out to be, giving a
submarine/spaceship feel to the proceedings. There were eight or ten
Overcomers in attendance and some thirty to forty people showed up. The
Overcomers were all under forty, clean and tidy, of all genders and races.
The men wore longsleeve shirts, patterned and plain, sleeves down and
buttoned to the collar. The women wore plain pantsuits and blouses, hair
trimmed neatly short, no makeup or jewelry. Four of them sat behind
folding tables at the front of the room and we sat on folding metal chairs.
Two main speakers did most of the work, a man and a woman, and every
word was recorded on cassette.
I'm not going to go into too many details here but one of the first things
they said was that they were not interested in talking people into joining.
They would tell us what their deal was and if it seemed like the sort of
thing we wanted to do we could talk to them about it. They didn't need
people who had to be jollied along and maintained all the time. As they
went along I found myself becoming strangely excited. Their ideas nestled
down in my brain and found itches that needed scratching. These people had
a PURPOSE, they had a goal in life and were working together to achieve it.
It was only when they started to drag a modified Jesus into it that I shook
myself awake and thought "Oh, this again. I wouldn't last a week with these
people." Turns out the last Away Team sent down was 2000 years ago, etc.
etc. . I noticed they seemed to lose a lot of the crowd's good feeling when
they stressed celibacy.
Anyhow I found a lot of their philosophy hard to pin down yet tantalizing,
and find it very difficult to reconcile the Higher Source event with what
I heard that day. The Heaven's Gate website (now shut down) which I took
to be the main Total Overcomers descendent, was still up last night (Mar.
26). I wasn't sure that the two groups were connected at the time but
when I took a look the similarities were disturbing. The site opened with
a big logo and a RED ALERT saying "Hale-Bopp brings closure to Heaven's
Gate." There was a statement that indicated they were planning on leaving
with the comet. Further down the page was a link to a VERY CLEAR
statement against suicide, which has me wondering exactly when that went
up. Naturally I failed to take pictures, and will kick myself for that
for quite some time to come. I hope somebody managed to get it before it
went down. I did think to save the Higher Source logo which I have
attempted to post on alt.binaries.slack.
From what I know of the group (more than I can tell here) and their
philosophies, I don't believe the Heaven's Gate/Total Overcomers group in
its entirety received orders from higher up to kill themselves. My
opinion at this time is that Higher Source was a semi-independent group as
regards its daily operation and that it took a turn which the rest of the
group(s) didn't follow. There do not yet seem to be any other such events
among other Overcomers so it may be that someone in San Diego decided to
redefine "suicide," making it possible for them to leave without breaking
the rules.
It shouldn't be too hard for the other Overcomers to split up and
submerge. They apeared to be industrious, dedicated and intelligent
people. The ones who chose to leave have gained my respect - they died
happy, doing what they wanted to do. Those who remain are offered my best
wishes. Good Luck to them in the difficult days to come.
--
"for courtesy don't undersign me from any postal list, if undersigned
ditches in anything edge cancel me thank you, my postal box and victim
of jokes, help me!" - bonis
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From: Donald L. Matthys <76513.3214@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Re: Some Higher Source info
"I don't believe them... Don't trust them... THEN LET THEM DIE!"--
Cpt James T.Kirk "The Undiscovered Country
Don; n.(Dark Prince, Ruler of Worlds.)
Minister of Frop-praganda
1st Vile Lodge of Fargonia
The Church of the SubGenius
Original file name: Nenslo's Higher Source
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