76 Facts About Marshall Applewhite

Marshall Applewhite initially pursued a career in education until he resigned from the University of St Thomas in Houston, Texas, in 1970, citing emotional turmoil.

In 1972, Marshall Applewhite developed a close friendship with Bonnie Nettles, a nurse; together, they discussed mysticism at length and concluded that they were called as divine messengers.

In 1975, Marshall Applewhite was arrested for failing to return a rental car and was jailed for six months.

Marshall Applewhite initially stated that he and his followers would physically ascend to a spaceship, where their bodies would be transformed, but later he came to believe that their bodies were the mere containers of their souls, which would later be placed into new bodies.

The son of a Presbyterian minister, Marshall Applewhite became very religious as a child.

Marshall Applewhite attended Corpus Christi High School and Austin College; at the latter school, he was active in several student organizations and was moderately religious.

Marshall Applewhite earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1952 and subsequently enrolled at Union Presbyterian Seminary to study theology, hoping to become a minister.

Marshall Applewhite married Anne Pearce around that time, and they later had two children, Mark and Lane.

Early in his seminary studies, Marshall Applewhite decided to leave the school to pursue a career in music, becoming the music director of a Presbyterian church in North Carolina.

Marshall Applewhite was a baritone singer and enjoyed spirituals and the music of Handel.

In 1954, Marshall Applewhite was drafted by the United States Army and served in Austria and New Mexico as a member of the Army Signal Corps.

Marshall Applewhite left the military in 1956 and enrolled at the University of Colorado, where he earned a master's degree in music and focused on musical theater.

Marshall Applewhite moved to New York City in an unsuccessful attempt to begin a professional singing career upon finishing his education in Colorado.

Marshall Applewhite then taught at the University of Alabama.

Marshall Applewhite separated from his wife when she learned of the affair in 1965, and they divorced three years later.

When Marshall Applewhite revealed to his parents that he was homosexual, his father rejected him.

In 1965, after leaving UA, Marshall Applewhite moved to Houston to serve as chair of the music department at the University of St Thomas.

Marshall Applewhite's students regarded him as an engaging speaker and a stylish dresser.

Marshall Applewhite became a locally popular singer, serving as the choral director of an Episcopal church and performing with the Houston Grand Opera.

In Houston, Marshall Applewhite was briefly openly gay but pursued a relationship with a young woman, who left him under pressure from her family; he was greatly upset by this outcome.

Marshall Applewhite resigned from the University of St Thomas in 1970, citing depression and other emotional problems.

Robert Balch and David Taylor, sociologists who studied Marshall Applewhite's group, speculate that this departure was prompted by another affair between Marshall Applewhite and a student.

The president of the university later recalled that Marshall Applewhite was often mentally jumbled and disorganized near the end of his employment.

In 1971, Marshall Applewhite briefly moved to New Mexico, where he operated a delicatessen.

Marshall Applewhite was popular with customers but decided to return to Texas later that year.

Marshall Applewhite's father died around that time; the loss took a significant emotional toll on him, causing severe depression.

Marshall Applewhite's debts mounted, forcing him to borrow money from friends.

In 1972, Marshall Applewhite met Bonnie Nettles, a nurse with an interest in Theosophy and Biblical prophecy.

Nettles told Marshall Applewhite their meeting had been foretold to her by extraterrestrials, persuading him that he had a divine assignment.

Marshall Applewhite permanently broke off contact with his family as well.

Marshall Applewhite saw Nettles as his soulmate, and some of his acquaintances later recalled that she had a strong influence on him.

At the time, Marshall Applewhite maintained that he had been "divinely authorized" to keep the car.

Nettles and Marshall Applewhite referred to themselves as "Guinea" and "Pig".

Marshall Applewhite described his role as a "lab instructor" and served as the primary speaker, while Nettles occasionally interjected clarifying remarks or corrections.

Marshall Applewhite believed in the ancient astronaut hypothesis, which claimed that extraterrestrials had visited humanity in the past and placed humans on Earth and would return to collect a select few.

Marshall Applewhite thought that his followers would reach a higher level of being, changing like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly; this example was used in almost all of the group's early literature.

Marshall Applewhite believed that complete separation from earthly desires was a prerequisite of ascension to the Next Level and emphasized passages in the New Testament in which Jesus spoke about forsaking worldly attachments.

Marshall Applewhite and Nettles later explained to their followers that the former's treatment by the press was a form of assassination and had fulfilled their prophecy.

Marshall Applewhite took a materialistic view of the Bible, seeing it as a record of extraterrestrial contact with humanity.

Marshall Applewhite drew heavily from the Book of Revelation, although he avoided traditional theological terminology and took a somewhat negative tone towards Christianity.

Marshall Applewhite only lectured about a small number of verses and never tried to develop a system of theology.

Marshall Applewhite sought to prevent close friendships among his followers, fearing that this could lead to insubordination.

Marshall Applewhite organized seemingly arbitrary rituals that were intended to instill a sense of discipline in his followers; he referred to these tasks as "games".

Marshall Applewhite watched science fiction television programs with the rest of the group.

Marshall Applewhite emphasized that students were free to disobey if they chose, in what Lalich dubs the "illusion of choice".

Lifton states that Marshall Applewhite wanted "quality over quantity" in his followers, although he occasionally spoke about gaining many converts.

Marshall Applewhite claimed that Nettles still communicated with him, but he suffered from a crisis of faith.

Marshall Applewhite's students supported him during this time, greatly encouraging him.

Marshall Applewhite then organized a ceremony in which he symbolically married his followers; Lalich views this as an attempt to ensure unity.

Marshall Applewhite began identifying her as "the Father" and often referred to her with male pronouns.

Marshall Applewhite began to emphasize a strict hierarchy, teaching that his students needed his guidance, as he needed the guidance of the Next Level.

Zeller notes that this naturally ensured no possibility of the group's continuing if Marshall Applewhite were to die.

Marshall Applewhite maintained some aspects of their scientific teachings, but in the 1980s the group became more like a religion in its focus on faith and submission to authority.

Marshall Applewhite then concluded that her spirit had traveled to a spaceship and received a new body and that his followers and he would do the same.

Marshall Applewhite believed that once they reached the Next Level, they would facilitate evolution on other planets.

Marshall Applewhite emphasized that Jesus, whom he believed was an extraterrestrial, came to Earth, was killed, and bodily rose from the dead before being transported onto a spaceship.

Marshall Applewhite then decided that an opportunity existed for humans to reach the Next Level "every two millennia", and the early 1990s would therefore provide the first opportunity to reach the Kingdom of Heaven since the time of Jesus.

Marshall Applewhite taught that he was a walk-in, a concept that had gained popularity in the New Age movement during the late 1970s.

Marshall Applewhite abandoned the metaphor of a butterfly in favor of describing the body as a mere container, a vehicle that souls could enter and exit.

One member who joined in the mid-1980s recalled that Marshall Applewhite avoided new converts, worrying that they were infiltrators.

Marshall Applewhite feared a government raid on their home and spoke highly of the Jewish defenders of Masada in ancient Israel who showed total resistance to the Roman Empire.

Woodward notes that Marshall Applewhite's teaching about the Earth's recycling is similar to the cyclical perspective of time found in Buddhism.

Marshall Applewhite used New Age concepts, but he differed from that movement by predicting that apocalyptic, rather than utopian, changes would soon occur on Earth.

Marshall Applewhite contended that most humans had been brainwashed by Lucifer but that his followers could break free of this control.

Marshall Applewhite argued that many prominent moral teachers and advocates of political correctness were actually Luciferians.

Marshall Applewhite explained that everything "human" had to be forsaken, including the human body, before one could ascend.

Marshall Applewhite cited a verse in the New Testament that said there would not be marriage in heaven.

Marshall Applewhite now believed that Nettles was aboard a spaceship trailing the comet, and that she planned to rendezvous with them.

Marshall Applewhite told his followers that the vessel would transport them to an empyrean destination, and that a government conspiracy was attempting to suppress word of the craft.

Marshall Applewhite recorded a video shortly before his death, in which he termed the suicides the "final exit" of the group and remarked, "We do in all honesty hate this world".

Lewis speculates that Marshall Applewhite settled on suicide because he had said that the group would ascend during his lifetime, so appointing a successor was unfeasible.

The deaths occurred over three days; Marshall Applewhite was one of the last four to die.

Marshall Applewhite's body was found seated on the bed of the mansion's master bedroom.

Marshall Applewhite's students had made a long-term commitment to him, and Balch and Taylor infer that this is why his interpretations of events appeared coherent to them.

Lewis argues that Marshall Applewhite effectively controlled his followers by packaging his teachings in familiar terms.

Urban posits that Marshall Applewhite found no way other than suicide to escape the society that surrounded him and states that death offered him a way to escape its "endless circle of seduction and consumption".