Marshall Applewhite - Introduction To Nettles and First Travels

Introduction To Nettles and First Travels

In 1972, Applewhite met Bonnie Nettles, a nurse with an interest in theosophy and biblical prophecy. The two quickly became close friends; he later recalled that he felt like he had known her for a long time and concluded that they had met in a past life. She told him their meeting had been foretold to her by extraterrestrials, persuading him that he had a divine assignment. By that time, he had begun to investigate alternatives to traditional Christian doctrine, including astrology. He also had had several visions, including one in which he was told that he was chosen for a role like that of Jesus. In her 2005 profile of Applewhite, Susan Raine speculates that he had a schizophrenic episode around this time.

Applewhite soon began to live with Nettles. Although they cohabited, their relationship was not a sexual one, fulfilling his longtime wish to have a deep and loving, yet platonic, relationship. She was married with two children, but after she became close with Applewhite, her husband divorced her, and she lost custody of her children. Applewhite permanently broke off contact with his family as well. He saw Nettles as his soulmate, and some of his acquaintances later recalled that she had a strong influence on him. Raine writes that Nettles "was responsible for reinforcing his emerging delusional beliefs", but psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton speculates that Nettles' influence helped him avoid further psychological deterioration.

Applewhite and Nettles opened a bookstore known as the Christian Arts Center, which carried books from a variety of spiritual backgrounds. They also launched a venture known as Know Place to teach classes on mysticism and theosophy. They closed these businesses a short time later. In February 1973, they resolved to travel to teach others about their beliefs and drove throughout the Southwest and Western U.S; Lifton describes their travels as a "restless, intense, often confused, peripatetic spiritual journey". While traveling, they had little money and occasionally resorted to selling their blood or working odd jobs for much-needed funds. They subsisted solely on bread rolls at times, often camped out, and sometimes did not pay their lodging bills. One of their friends from Houston corresponded with them and agreed to accept their teachings. They visited her in May 1974, and she became their first convert.

While traveling, Applewhite and Nettles pondered the life of St. Francis of Assisi and read works by authors including Helena Blavatsky, R. D. Laing, and Richard Bach. They kept a King James Version of the Bible with them and studied several passages from the New Testament, focusing on teachings about Christology, asceticism, and eschatology. Applewhite also read science fiction, including works by Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. By June 1974, Applewhite and Nettles' beliefs had solidified into a basic outline. They concluded that they had been chosen to fulfill biblical prophecies, and that they had been given higher-level minds than other people. They wrote a pamphlet that described Jesus' reincarnation as a Texan, a thinly veiled reference to Applewhite. Furthermore, they concluded that they were the two witnesses described in the Book of Revelation and occasionally visited churches or other spiritual groups to speak of their identities, often referring to themselves as "The Two", or "The UFO Two". They believed that they would be killed and then restored to life and, in view of others, transported onto a spaceship. This event, which they referred to as "the Demonstration", was to prove their claims. To their dismay, these ideas received a poor reception.