While most University of Houston students were enjoying their Spring Break, members of the Heaven's Gate cult were planning their departure from Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.
Where were they going? To a spaceship the cult believed to be shielded by the comet Hale-Bopp. The cult members believed the spaceship would take their liberated souls to heaven after they committed suicide.
As most people already know, some of the details (such as male castration) are a little bizarre. Unfortunately, bizarre mass suicides seem to have a newfound popularity - not only in the United States, but across the globe.
In 1994, Swiss authorities found 48 bodies in a farmhouse that was consumed by fire. Cause of death: a religious mass suicide. March 23 (the second day of Spring Break), five followers of the Order of the Solar Temple, a Canadian cult rooted in a centuries-old Roman Catholic order, decided to take their lives in a blazing inferno. Experts say these mass suicides are probably only the beginning of what could be an epidemic. Cult and doomsday suicides will probably escalate as the century turns.
With the year 2000 only two years and nine months away, this is fair warning: Don't be brainwashed. You're laughing, right? It'll never happen to you.
Sometimes it's easy to believe what others say, because it sounds good, especially in this vacuous society.
If you want to join an organization, religious or not, investigate. Several organizations have closets full of skeletons that you may not want to be associated with. And once you've joined an organization, it's hard to get out.
Better yet, instead of putting your life in someone else's hands (like David Koresh or Marshall Applewhite), take control and make the world a better place yourself. After all, driving or walking to a local charity isn't that difficult.