Strange Arrivals is a production of I-Heart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey.

For the best experience, listen with headphones. This is the second of two interviews I did while researching Heaven's Gate for season 3 of strange arrivals.

In the end, I did not include Heaven's Gate in the main episodes of season 3 for a variety of

reasons, but wanted people to be able to hear these interviews. The first one dropped last week. You can

listen to them in either order. This is an interview with Ben Zeller, who is a

professor of religious studies at Lake Forest College in Illinois.

My name is Ben Zeller. I'm a professor of Religious Studies at Lake Forest College

outside of Chicago, Illinois.

Could you talk about Applewhite and Nettles backgrounds both, you know, religiously and

otherwise?

Marshall Herve Applewhite, who is the religiously and otherwise?

Marshall Hurf Applewhite, who is the leader of Heaven's Gate

at the end, but only one of the two co-founders

at the beginning, came from a pretty conventional

Christian background.

His father was a

Presbyterian minister and Applewhite was raised basically in the church. So for

him, Christianity was just sort of the assumed background. He went to college. He actually considered

becoming a minister himself and he started at seminary. So he actually has some

training as a Christian minister. He left seminary because he felt drawn into music as a career. It's

sometimes hypothesized. He also left because he realized that he was bisexual. We

don't have any hard evidence of that,

...