Marshall Applewhite - Analysis

Analysis

Although many popular commentators, including psychologist Margaret Singer, speculate that Applewhite brainwashed his followers, this idea is rejected by most academics. Lalich speculates that they were willing to follow Applewhite in suicide because they had become totally dependent upon him, and hence were poorly suited for life in his absence. Davis attributes Applewhite's success in convincing his followers to commit suicide to two factors: he isolated them socially and cultivated an attitude of complete religious obedience in them. 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. Most of the dead had been members for about 20 years, although there were a few recent converts.

Lewis argues the Applewhite effectively controlled his followers by packaging his teachings in familiar terms. Richard Hecht of the University of California, Santa Barbara, echoes this sentiment, arguing that members of the group committed suicide because they believed the narrative that he had constructed, rather than because he psychologically controlled them. In his 2000 study of apocalyptic movements, John R. Hall posits that they were motivated to commit suicide because they saw it as a way to demonstrate that they had conquered the fear of death and truly believed Applewhite.

Urban writes that Applewhite's life displays "the intense ambivalence and alienation shared by many individuals lost in late twentieth-century capitalist society". He notes that Applewhite's condemnations of contemporary culture bear similarities to those of Jean Baudrillard at times, particularly their shared nihilist views. Urban posits that 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".

While covering the suicides, several media outlets focused on Applewhite's sexuality; the New York Post dubbed him "the Gay Guru". Gay rights activist Troy Perry argued that Applewhite's repression, and society's rejection, of same-sex relationships ultimately led to his suicide. This idea has failed to gain support among academics. Zeller argues that Applewhite's sexuality was not the primary driving force behind his asceticism, which he believes resulted from a variety of factors, though he grants sexuality a role.

Lalich states that Applewhite "fit the traditional view of a charismatic leader", and Evan Thomas deems him a "master manipulator". Lifton compares Applewhite to Shoko Asahara, the founder of Aum Shinrikyo, describing him as "equally controlling, his paranoia and megalomania gentler yet ever present". Christopher Partridge of Lancaster University states that Applewhite and Nettles were similar to John Reeve and Lodowicke Muggleton, who founded Muggletonianism, a millennialist movement in medieval England.