From our pages

The Phoenix and the alien suicide cult

For most local newspapers, the Heaven's Gate suicide in California was a source of bafflement. The best the Globe and the Herald could offer was one dutiful editorial apiece -- the Herald's marveling that 39 successful businesspeople could have been so nuts, the Globe's scolding the dead and warning the rest of us that "the case must still be loudly made against blindly following the footsteps of charismatic but apocalyptic leaders."

Undeniably sound advice. But the Phoenix is lucky enough to be able to present another viewpoint. Turns out that in 1993, this paper ran a half-page ad from "Total Overcomers Anonymous," which made the Heaven's Gate sales pitch under the junk-mail headline FINAL OFFER FROM THE EVOLUTIONARY LEVEL ABOVE HUMAN. Though the group's basic ideology has been pretty well worked over in the press, the ad brings the more vivid points into clearer focus.

---

The full text of the ad

The story of one man's personal encounter with the cult

---